Miami Heat vs Chicago Bulls Prediction: Elimination game, win or go home?

The NBA Play-in tournament has brought to us a bunch of surprises thus far. Three out of the four games have been won by the road squad and two teams with home-court advantage have packed their bags after losing. Therefore, the home-court advantage hasn’t mattered all that much. In this game, the Miami Heat will have the home-court advantage as they take on Chicago Bulls.

The Heat lost their seventh-seed match-up against the Atlanta Hawks, losing 105:116 despite having home-court advantage. The team uncharacteristically gave up 65 points in the first half and trailed by 15. One big disadvantage the Heat was on the rebounding end where the Hawks have 16 more offensive rebounds than the Heat. The Hawks had five more field goals despite having four more turnovers and cashed in on a 46% of their attempts while the Heat made almost 43%.

For the Heat, Kyle Lowry who has struggled all season was the unlikely hero, dipping 33 points, and making six triples. Tyler Herro also had a solid game with 26 points. Buttler shot 6/19 whereas Bam Adebayo was just 5/12. The rest of the unit struggled to shoot from the floor, however the most disappointing aspect of the loss was the lack of effort on the defensive and rebounding end.

The Bulls completed a remarkable come-from-behind win against the Raptors, winning 109:105 as the team got it together in the final quarter. Chicago was behind 11 points in the first half and by nine points by the end of the third quarter. With their defense struggling and the offense also not paying dividends, but then LaVine wasn’t to be denied and made all kinds of difficult shots to bring his team the win.

The Bulls shot almost 49% from the field, almost five percent better than the Raptors which helped them overcome their woeful long-range shooting, as the Raptors had four more triples on a much better percentage. Thanks to their inside and mid-range play, the Bulls survived the match-up while their defense also turned the heat in the second half which made the biggest difference.

• Heat: OUT: Nikola Jovic. Likely: Jimmy Butler, Gabe Vincent, Kyle Lowry;
• Bulls: OUT: Lonzo Ball, Justin Lewis.

• Expected Leading Scorers: Zach LaVine(31-35 Points), Tyler Herro(24-29 Points);
• Expected Leading Rebounders: Nikola Vucevic (12-16 Rebounds), Bam Adebayo(9-11 Rebounds);
• Expected Leading Playmakers: Jimmy Butler(7-10 Assists), Zach LaVine(5-7 Assists).

The Bulls have been playing some strong basketball away from home and the last game was a clear example of this. The major problem for the Heat has been that they have big injury woes and the play of Butler and Adebayo wasn’t encouraging in the last game. Defensively, the Heat needs to be much better and they do have the potential. I back the Heat to seize the eighth seed and predict a scoreline of 108:102 in their favor.