This game sees the 4-2 Cleveland Cavaliers take on the 3-3 Chicago Bulls at the United Center. Cleveland Cavaliers C Zydrunas Ilgauskas PF Ben Wallace SF LeBron James SG Delonte West PG Mo Williams Key Bench Players: Daniel Gibson, Anderson Varejao, Wally Szczerbiak @ C Drew Gooden PF Tyrus Thomas SF Luol Deng SG Thabo Sefolosha PG Derrick Rose Key Bench Players: Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Joakim Noah, Andres Nocioni Chicago Bulls Cavaliers' Keys to Victory Rebound hard - the Cavs had a really poor rebounding night last night against the Pacers, getting outrebounded 44-30. It will be important to rebound (excuse the pun) from that shabby performance to really make an impact on the glass tonight. They made what should have been a relatively easy game last night into a difficult one because they did not rebound the ball well. If they do this again tonight against a Bulls team which is 3-0 at home, they probably won't win. Keep LeBron going - LeBron finally hit a three point shot last night, but he is still just 1-19 from downtown for the season. If he can maintain the aggressive aspect of his game, but also hit his jumpshots, he could be really devastating tonight against a Chicago team that really had no answer for him on Wednesday, as he scored Play tight defence - the Cavs forgot about their defence for the first quarter of last night's game, and they could have lost as a result of that. The Bulls are a better team than the Pacers, so if they play defence like the beginning of last night, they might lose the game before it really gets going. Bulls' Keys to Victory Take advantages of Cavs' lapses - in each of the past few games, there have been slight lapses of the Cavs, especially on defence, especially in the third quarter. The Bulls will need to fully exploit these lapses tonight if they are to beat a Cavs team which has, at times, looked very strong. LeBron James - it's difficult to say how the Bulls should treat LeBron tonight. He only shot 4-7 from the line against the Pacers, but did manage 15-16 against the Bulls on Wednesday. They might want to test him out by fouling him a lot in the opening quarter, to see how he reacts to the crowd. Other than that, it is difficult to say, but I think the Bulls will be satisfied if they can limit him to 25 points tonight. Shhot better from the floor - when the two teams met on Wednesday, the Bulls only averaged 39.2% from the floor. Against a team like the Cavaliers, this simply won't cut it and, unless you play elite defence which the Bulls cannot, you are almost certain to lose when shooting at that level. If they can boost this to 45-50%, they will put themselves in a very strong position to potentially make it their fourth straight win at home. Prediction The Cavs and Bulls have split their 23 games since 2003 13-10 in favour of the Cavs. LeBron has scored 30 or more points in 11 of his past 13 games (and one of those two was a 29 point game) against the Bulls, and averages 29.8 points, 6 rebounds and 6.1 assists. If he can pull out another 41 point performance as he did Wednesday, I can't see the Cavs losing. In fact, even if he hovers around 30, provided he gets a good number of assists, I still can't see them losing, especially if the likes of Mo Williams, Zydrunas Ilgausakas, Daniel Gibson and Anderson Varejao (who had 18 and 8 against the Pacers) perform well. The Bulls will probably push them closer than the 93-107 loss on Wednesday, but I still can't see them winning. 97-93
