The Bulls march into Philadelphia losers of four straight and with their season in the balance. With Joel Embiid and Zach LaVine both available, here's what to watch for when the two square off on NBC Sports Chicago at 5 p.m. CT:
76ers’ last five games (1-4)
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Feb. 7 — W vs. Grizzlies: 119-107
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Feb. 6 — L at Bucks: 112-101
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Feb. 3 — L at Heat: 137-106
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Feb. 1 — L at Celtics: 116-95
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Jan. 30 — L at Hawks: 127-117
Home cookin’
The Sixers’ home-road record disparity is among the more puzzling storylines in the league this season. Philadelphia owns the best home record in the NBA (23-2), yet enter play only 32-21 due to a 9-18 mark on the road. The last time these two played, I tabled a few glaring Sixers home-road statistical splits. Here’s what those look like now:
| Offensive Rating | Defensive Rating | Net Rating | 3P% | |
| Home | 111.4 (16th) | 101.4 (1st) | +10.0 (3rd) | 37.6 (8th) |
| Road | 105.2 (25th) | 110.3 (11th) | -5.0 (24th) | 33.6 (26th) |
Philly is fresh off a winless four-game road swing that featured blowout losses to the Celtics and Heat, and even a double-digit defeat at the hands of the lowly Hawks. But, back in the city of brotherly love, they got back on track in thumping the Grizzlies on Friday. Mired in a lackluster stretch of play and with rumors of an unhappy locker room swirling, there’ll be urgency to keep that momentum going against an inferior opponent in the Bulls.
NBA
Sidebar: Furkan Korkmaz scored a career-high 34 points in that Grizzlies game, setting a single-game career-high with seven 3-pointers. Korkmaz led all scorers and canned a then-career-high six 3-pointers when the Sixers toppled the Bulls 100-89 in Philadelphia on Jan. 17, and is shooting 42.5% from deep on 7.3 attempts per game since that night. Beware.
Can the Bulls stymie a defensive downturn?
For the first two-and-a-half months of the season, the Bulls hung their hats on a highly-rated defense, even amidst ups and downs in the win-loss column. But injuries have doomed that silver lining; as of this morning, the team’s defensive rating has slipped to 11th in the NBA, and the numbers since Wendell Carter Jr. (on Jan. 6) and Kris Dunn (on Jan. 31) went down are alarming:
The Sixers are, for the most part, a clunky offensive team in the halfcourt, but these undermanned Bulls represent a juicy matchup. Since Carter went down, the Bulls are dead last in the league in opponent field goal percentage (51.2%), and the Sixers have the perfect blend of size, athleticism and physicality to bring the hurt. A win would be surprising, but could vault the Bulls back into the playoff race — they're still somehow just three games out of the eighth seed, which they've maintained as a goal.
Injury report
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Joel Embiid, who had been questionable after leaving that aforementioned Grizzlies game with neck stiffness, is officially available. The Bulls were fortunate to miss him in their first meetup with Philly, but he’ll get the benefit of facing an depleted Bulls center rotation highlighted by Luke Kornet and Cristiano Felicio in this one.
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For the Bulls, Zach LaVine and Daniel Gafford are both officially available. Gafford provides some much-needed help on the interior, and LaVine is just about the only thing that keeps the Bulls offense afloat on a game-to-game basis.
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Denzel Valentine is inactive with hamstring tightness. This will be his second missed game in a row, leaving the Bulls with 11 healthy bodies for this one.
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