Chicago @ Indiana preview

Last Meeting ( Dec 29, 2017 ) Indiana 107, Chicago 119

The struggling Indiana Pacers hope to have standout guard Victor Oladipo back in the lineup when they host the Chicago Bulls on Saturday. Oladipo has missed four straight games due to an injured right knee and Indiana has dropped five straight games overall.

A decision regarding Oladipo, who averages 24.9 points, will be made at some point on Saturday and the team's leading scorer sounds ready to give his team a lift. "We're going to be all right," Oladipo told reporters. "It was a rough stretch, everybody goes through it, some of the best teams that are doing well now went through it early. We're going through it right now. It's about resilience and trying to figure it out." The Pacers have won nine of the past 11 home games against the Bulls, and Chicago is just 5-15 on the road even after posting a 127-124 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Friday. Point guard Kris Dunn scored a career-best 32 points on 12-of-17 shooting and also recorded nine assists and four steals as the Bulls ended a three-game skid.

TV: 7 p.m. ET, WGN (Chicago), FS Indiana

ABOUT THE BULLS (13-25): Dunn is in his first season with Chicago and he said Friday's splurge is partially due to his becoming much more comfortable with coach Fred Hoiberg's system. "I know all the plays," Dunn told reporters afterward. "Coach believes in me so I just try to see how the game is going and try to get into the action. I appreciate Coach having that trust in me." The outing was a big bounce-back performance for Dunn as well as he had just two points on 1-of-6 shooting against Toronto two nights earlier.

ABOUT THE PACERS (19-19): Coach Nate McMillan doesn't want to hang the reasons for the slide on the absence of Oladipo but the team's last three defeats have been by an average of 16.7 points. "It hasn't been pretty," McMillan told reporters. "It hasn't felt good. It's not so much getting beat, it's how you get beat. We're not playing with that energy, that effort, that sense of urgency, that connection we were playing with a month ago. We've got to get back to that." Forward Domantas Sabonis put together a good showing during Wednesday's 122-101 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks when he scored a career-high 24 points on 10-of-13 shooting.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. The Pacers are 2-1 versus the Bulls this season, including a 98-96 home victory on Dec. 6.

2. Chicago SG Justin Holiday is 11-of-15 from 3-point range while averaging 24.5 points over the past two games.

3. Indiana F Thaddeus Young has scored in double digits just once in the past seven games.

PREDICTION: Pacers 111, Bulls 109