For most people, the holidays are essentially over. Everyone is resuming the daily grind of life and heading to work for their 9 to 5 gigs. Everyone except children and students, I guess, who parents are stuck with for another week or two. Hopefully, whatever gifts you’ve given your kids will keep them occupied while you continue to work to get them more stuff. Such is life.
The Toronto Raptors are back in action, too. After an exciting win against the middling Milwaukee Bucks two days ago, they’re in Illinois taking on the Chicago Bulls tonight. Being that the game’s in the Midwest, tip off is at 8 p.m. You can watch it on Sportsnet One.
The Bulls are an odd team this year. They’ve beaten some very good teams, including the Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers, but they’ve also lost to some not-so-good teams, like the Minnesota Timberwolves. That’s bound to happen to any team over an 82-game season, but for the Bulls, this is a daily thing. There isn’t much consistency from night to night, and it’s difficult to project whether or not they’ll win a given game.
And the Bulls’ players are acutely aware of that. In fact, Jimmy Butler was recently chastised for insinuating that new head coach Fred Hoiberg doesn’t hold his players accountable in the same way that Tom Thibodeau did. That’s not a crazy thing to say, mind you, as Thibs was notorious for ripping his players and playing them into the ground, whereas Hoiberg is a far more relaxed personality.
That isn’t to say the Bulls are not good. The Bulls are very good. Their 16-12 record has them fighting for a playoff spot amongst a smorgasbord of equally talented teams in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately, they haven’t quite figured out how to win on a nightly basis yet. The Bulls have won just five of their last 10 games.
The Raptors would match up very well with the Bulls if they were healthy, but with Jonas Valanciunas likely to play limited minutes in his first game back from injury, they might struggle against the Bulls’ front line. Pau Gasol, Taj Gibson, and Nikola Mirotic are all stellar players in their own right, but together they present quite the challenge for opponents. How head coach Dwane Casey gameplans against the Bulls’ bigs will be interesting to see. Luckily — for the Raptors, anyway — Joakim Noah is dealing with a shoulder strain that will keep him out of tonight’s game.
And for you rosterbators, each of the aforementioned players are apparently available.
Perhaps the most interesting matchup tonight, though, is between Jimmy Butler and DeMar DeRozan. Butler’s having a stellar season; he’s currently averaging 21.4 points, five rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.9 steals in 37.7 minutes per game. DeRozan is an average defender, so it shouldn’t be surprising if Casey decides to hide him and throw other players at Butler, like James Johnson and DeMarre Carroll. Carroll’s only played one game since returning from injury, though, so he might not be ready for big minutes against a difficult assignment in Butler. But hey, maybe he is. We’ll see.
It’s nice to have the Raptors close to full strength again. Through 31 games, their ideal starting lineup has only played in 11 games together. The Raptors have been fortunate enough to squeeze out a few wins with DeRozan and Kyle Lowry playing significant minutes and Valanciunas and Carroll out. We finally get to see what this team’s really about.
