Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome in to the Lakers Nation.com podcast. My name's Trevor Lane, and it's game day. Lakers Bulls 5 p.m. Pacific time tonight. Come hang out right here on the Lakers Nation.com YouTube channel. We'll do a little play-by-play during the game, starting at 5 p.m. Break things down as it's happening. It's like a party. Hopefully we'll get to celebrate a Lakers victory.

So again, 5 p.m. Pacific time tonight on today's show.

I want to get into the injury report plus what the Lakers need to do in order to get the victory.

And I'll tell you this as we get into the injury update, there's the possibility that something unique on the season could unfortunately happen. Something that

has not happened for the entire season could unfortunately take place tonight. And by that,

I mean, Jake LaRavia missing a game. He is questionable to play tonight, according to the Lakers,

dealing with a quad contusion. Now, that does not mean he's definitely out, but Jake has not missed a single

game so far this season. Should he be out for this one, it would be the first. So he is on the

injury report questionable. Austin Reeves is still out, but it's sounding like maybe next game

against the Cavs. He may give it a go. We'll see. Nothing for sure right now, but we know he's returning sometime in this road trip. February 3rd is the last game of the road trip. We'll see it's not going to be tonight. He is still listed as out. It will not be tonight, but it's coming. And Austin Reeves return is coming. A Dut Thero also listed as out, not unexpected there for the Lakers.

A Dutero will not be in action.

Now for the Chicago Bulls, pretty clean injury report.

They just got Josh Giddy back.

The Chicago Bulls did.

So, you know, in terms of players that Lakers fans, and Trey Jones is doubtful to play in

this one dealing with the hamstring injury. But other than that, Zach Collins is really

the only other player that Lakers fans would be particularly concerned about that's out for Chicago.

They are a pretty healthy team. Like I said, Josh Giddy just came back a couple of games ago. So he will be back in action. And Zach Collins is the only one of note, really, for Chicago that's out for this one. The rest of them, either rookies, two-way contracts, things of that nature. All right. So that's the injury report. The Lakers, you know, hopefully Jake LaRavia can go. I'm curious to see if LaRavia doesn't play. What does J.J. Reddick do? Does J.J. Reddick go back to Rui Hachemura in the starting lineup, who, by the way, has been playing really well, broke out of that shooting slump. I made him the X factor for our last game against the Dallas Mavericks, and he really did break out of that shooting slump in a big, big way. I also kind of like the Ruby at center minutes, but does that mean back in the starting lineup? I would still argue, no. I would put Jared Vanderbilt in the starting lineup ahead of Rui Hachamura, but we'll see what JJ does if Jake LaRavia is not a go. Hopefully Jake is a go and he's ready to play and we'll see that we will see the familiar starting lineup of Marcus Smart, Jake LaRavia, Luca Donchich, LeBron James and D'Andre Aiton, who we're going to talk more about in just a bit. But let's get into the keys to victory.

What do the Lakers need to do in order to get the win in this one tonight? Well, number one, and I got to keep this from the last preview video that we did, respect the opponent. And here's what I'm talking about right now. I don't know what it is. The Lakers keep running into these teams when they're red hot. but the Chicago Bullies, you look at the standings,

and you're like, oh,

Chicago's not that good. I mean, they're above 500 now. That's pretty good.

23 and 22. Amazing. The nine seat in the east is above 500. Their point differential is minus 1.8.

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