Pacers at Bulls
The new-look Chicago Bulls showed plenty of fight in a season-opening victory and will try to carry that same spunk into a matchup with the visiting Indiana Pacers on Saturday. Behind 22 points from Dwyane Wade in his first game with the club, the Bulls got past Boston 105-99 on Thursday, surviving a chippy affair with a team-first effort that wasn't always evident last season.
"We're hungry right now," forward Taj Gibson - who recorded 18 points and 10 rebounds - told reporters. "We have a lot of guys that have tasted success, and we got a lot of young guys that want to taste that success. Point blank, period." Jimmy Butler led Chicago with 24 points and combined with Wade to make 8-of-12 3-pointers as the Eastern Conference's top 3-point shooting team from a season ago (37.1 percent) picked up where it left off from beyond the arc. Indiana took the same approach with a 10-of-19 long-range showing in its win over Dallas on Wednesday, but it went the other direction (7-of-24) in Friday's 103-94 loss at Brooklyn. Paul George, who averaged 24.5 points and 7.3 rebounds in four meetings with Chicago last season, led the way with 22 points.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FSN Indiana, CSN Chicago
ABOUT THE PACERS (1-1): Jeff Teague has handed out 15 assists through his first two games in an Indiana uniform, but the former Atlanta Hawks star is just 7-of-28 from the floor and has missed all seven of his 3-point tries. The Pacers were further hampered in the backcourt when Rodney Stuckey departed Friday's loss with a right hamstring strain, joining Aaron Brooks (knee) on the sidelines. Brooks was a member of the Bulls when he scored 29 points to help them get past Indiana in overtime in the last meeting at the United Center on Dec. 30.
ABOUT THE BULLS (1-0): Point guard Rajon Rondo had just four points on 1-of-9 shooting in his Chicago debut, but he handed out nine assists and stepped right in when Butler got into it with Celtics forward Jae Crowder in the first half. "When I hit that deck, Rondo was right there, you know," Butler told the media. "I want to play with guys that's going to play hard, that's going to fight. Dwyane Wade, Rondo, everyone around this locker room wants to win. It's real." Gibson beat out Nikola Mirotic for the starting spot, but the latter came out of the gate just fine, recording 15 points and nine assists in 29 minutes off the bench.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Chicago won last season's series 3-1, but three of the games were decided by fewer than three points.
2. Wade recorded 22 points and eight assists in 27 minutes of a preseason matchup with Indiana on Oct. 8.
3. Pacers C Myles Turner is averaging 21.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 3.5 blocks through the first two games.