Heading into the season, it was widely expected that the Utah Jazz would be easy to read: they’d be the worst team in the league, they’d trade Lauri Markkanen at some point before the deadline, and if they ever picked off the occasional win, it’d be against a bad team. Isaiah Collier would be their starting point guard.
The Jazz still aren’t great — they likely won’t make the postseason — but they’ve had some great wins, beating the Houston Rockets, LA Clippers, San Antonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics, and they took the Oklahoma City Thunder to overtime. They also lost to the Charlotte Hornets by 55. Keyonte George, relegated from the starting lineup at Collier’s expense last season, might be an All-Star.
By contrast, Utah’s opponent today — the Chicago Bulls — are exactly where they were expected to be: on a collision course for the East’s Play-In Tournament at 18-21. They’ve been more inconsistent on a game-to-game basis, but the Bulls have an almost asymptotic attraction to mediocrity.
The Jazz will sit two players for tonight’s front end of the back-to-back, Kevin Love and Georges Niang, and Markkanen (illness) is doubtful. Chicago’s injury list is long: Josh Giddey (hamstring) remains out, and Coby White (calf injury management), Zach Collins (toe sprain), and Julian Phillips (wrist) didn’t play last night against the Houston Rockets. White seems likely to play and Collins likely to sit, and Phillips — on the fringes of the rotation — probably wouldn’t factor into the result regardless.
The Bulls are 4.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-180 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 241.5. Utah, meanwhile, is +150 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s inter-conference battle and offer my prediction.
Utah Jazz at Chicago Bulls preview, prediction
The first time these two teams faced off this season, it was one of the best clashes of the season, with the Jazz ultimately triumphing in double-overtime behind George’s game-winning three. In that game, though, Chicago’s best player was Giddey, who had 26 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists, two steals, and two blocks, and Phillips contributed 10 points off the bench, so it’ll need to replace some of that production tonight if it even wants to take Utah to overtime. A good candidate to take on some of that additional load is Ayo Dosunmu, who’d been averaging 18.4 points per game in the first five games of December before putting up just seven points in the loss to Houston last night. Tre Jones led the team in scoring last night with 34 points and could be a major factor again tonight.
Utah is coming off of a win in which George led the way with 32 points, but it was just the Jazz’s second win in 2026 and came on the heels of that 55-point defeat in which former lottery pick Cody Williams was a minus-60, the worst single-game plus-minus in NBA history. Utah won in the old-fashioned way, as it dominated the boards to outlast a Cleveland Cavaliers team that actually shot pretty well from deep. George was central to that effort, of course, but so was Jusuf Nurkić, who was thrust into the starting role in November when Walker Kessler underwent season-ending shoulder surgery. Nurkić is a negative on offense at this point in his career, but he actually ranks 17th by defensive RAPM.
Jazz at Bulls pick, best bet
Defensive enthusiasts won’t want to watch this game; for the season, the Jazz rank dead last in defensive rating and the Bulls fifth-to-last, and while Chicago has climbed to 19th since the offense-oriented Giddey went down, the Bulls are still bad on that side of the floor. Instead, there should be lots of points scored: both teams rank in the league’s top four in pace, and while both also rank in the league’s bottom half in offensive rating, each team at least has some exciting weapons on that side of the ball. These are teams that pass the ball a lot — Chicago ranks second in passes per game and fourth in assists, and Utah ranks 13th in passes and second in assists — while also allowing opponents to rack up dimes. The Jazz have also imploded defensively without Markkanen on the floor.
The Bulls should have the advantage on the interior. While Chicago has still allowed the most shots in the restricted area for the season as a whole, it has actually allowed a below-average number in the last seven games, since Giddey’s injury, and because Vučević doesn’t have to cover up for Giddey’s lackadaisical defense, the Bulls have allowed the fifth-lowest percentage at the rim in that span. They’ve also gotten downhill at a better rate than Utah has, even after Giddey’s injury, and while the Jazz have done a good job preventing opponents from getting to the rim in the first place, they have conceded the third-highest percentage in that zone. Across that span, Chicago has also had a slight rebounding edge, though that’s in part because Nurkić has missed four of the seven games. With the Bosnian on the court, Utah’s rebounding percentage is 7.0 percentage points higher, but it might give the advantage right back with Markkanen likely to miss the game.
It’s not just driving, though; the Bulls also have the healthier shot diet overall. For the season, Chicago has produced the most wide-open threes, and it still leads the league in that category even after Giddey’s injury, which is a testament both to Billy Donovan’s scheme and to Jones’ passing ability. The Bulls haven’t even gotten particularly lucky on such shots, hitting them at a league-average rate. Though the Jazz have better pure shooters — George and Markkanen both rank in the league’s top 50 by expected three-point percentage differential, while Dosunmu is the only Chicago player in the top 50 — they also produce fewer uncontested looks than Chicago does and they allow the league’s most. Their shot diet could be even worse tonight without Markkanen, who ranks eighth by the NBA’s new Gravity stat. George is one of the league’s premier tough-shot makers, but Dosumnu did a good job guarding him in the teams’ first matchup.
Add that to home-court advantage, which amounts to a net swing of 5.4 points per 100 possessions in the Bulls’ favor, as well as Markkanen’s likely absence (he trails only Giannis Antetokounmpo in net on-off swing), and Chicago should cover the spread in this one.
