Zach LaVine's Playing Status vs. Sixers on Sunday

When the Philadelphia 76ers face off against the Chicago Bulls on Sunday afternoon, the Sixers will be without a key backup point guard in Shake Milton.

In addition, the Sixers are waiting to hear on the statuses of Furkan Korkmaz and Matisse Thybulle as the two young veterans were listed on the injury report as questionable on Saturday night.

The Sixers aren’t the only team to deal with setbacks on Sunday. Going into the matchup, the Bulls had quite a few key names listed. As expected, Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, and Derrick Jones Jr. were all ruled out early as they’ve been dealing with significant setbacks.

Along with those guys, the Bulls also listed Coby White as questionable as he’s dealing with a right adductor strain. Also, Bulls star Zach LaVine was questionable as he’s currently dealing with back spasms.

When the Bulls paid a visit to the Indiana Pacers a couple of nights ago, LaVine was inactive. Although Chicago left the door open for LaVine to make his return on Sunday afternoon against the Sixers, the Bulls don’t plan to have LaVine back just yet.

According to Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Bulls have ruled out LaVine for the Sunday afternoon matchup. That’s a tough hit for the Bulls, who struggled in their previous two games against the 76ers even with LaVine on the floor.

Although the top-seeded Bulls will still offer a tough matchup against the 76ers on Sunday, the absence of Chicago’s star forward, who averages just under 25 points per game this year, will surely be a hard hit for the home team.

The Sixers and the LaVine-less Bulls are set to tip-off at 3:30 PM ET.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.

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