The NBA regular season opening day cannot get any better as Cleveland Cavaliers take on Chicago Bulls at United Center on Tuesday.
Cavaliers, who lost the NBA finals last season to Golden State Warriors, are one of the strongest teams in the league. With an array of stars such as LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love amongst others, they will provide other teams in the NBA a run for their money. provided their players suffer no long-term injuries. However, Irving will miss the opening game of the season at the United Center.
Bulls had a decent season last time around, but they will be eager to deliver better this season, but they need their big players such as Pau Gasol , Derrick Rose and more importantly Jimmy Butler, who is their star player, to fire on all cylinders this season.
If the Bulls players get their act going, they could have a great season ahead. The Bulls will be eyeing this season opener as a perfect revenge as it was the Cavaliers, who threw Bulls out of the Playoffs last season.
The Cavaliers have started their preparations well for the new season and their star players, James does not want to put too much on the opening game.
''We're not going to put too much on the first game of the season,'' AP quoted James as saying.
''We've put in a lot of work over the last few weeks, and you can only try to get healthy, work your habits, work your rhythm and our last few practices have been very good. But you don't put too much onus on if this will be the team that we'll be long-term tomorrow.''
Former Iowa State coach, Fred Hoiberg , who replaced Tom Thibodeau as the new Bulls' coach, will be eager to start with a win in front of his home fans, but he is aware of the huge task against the strong looking Cavs'. The new coach has already made some changes as he will start with Nikola Mirotic on Tuesday.
Hoiberg seems to be confident as the team has seen progress ever since the training camp took shape.
''It's been a fun group to be around,'' Hoiberg said. ''I think we've made strides since we opened up our training camp.''
Though the Cavaliers are firm favourites to defeat the Bulls, they cannot take it easy against Bulls, as the home teams will be more than eager to start the 82 game regular season with a win and launch their campaign in style.
Where to watch live
Chicago Bulls vs Cleveland Cavaliers NBA regular season opener is scheduled for 8pm local time (5:30am IST, 1am BST) start. Viewers in India can watch Chicago Bulls vs Cleveland Cavaliers live on Sony Six.
Chicago Bulls vs Cleveland Cavaliers live game will be shown live in the UK on BT Sport 2 with live streaming on Watch BT Sport or with the BT Sport Online app.
US viewers can watch Chicago Bulls vs Cleveland Cavaliers live on TNT and online on tnt.com.
International viewers, including India, can watch all the NBA live action by live streaming on NBA Online.
