Bulls let Game 4 get away from them
Heading into the fourth quarter Sunday, everything seemed to point to the Bulls building a 3-1 lead in this second-round series against Cleveland.
The Bulls led by 7 points, Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving could barely run on his sore right foot, and LeBron James seemed exhausted from having to carry the load for his team.
But one thing the Bulls have been missing all season is a killer instinct. By the time James tossed in a 22-foot fadeaway jumper to give Cleveland a buzzer-beating 86-84, it was easy to ask what went wrong.
Oh, yeah, the same thing that has been happening to the Bulls all season.
They can look pretty good at times but also tend to relax whenever there's any sort of cushion. So now the series is tied at 2-2 and the urgency is back with Game 5 set for Cleveland on Tuesday.
“We've been like that all year,” Mike Dunleavy said in the locker room. “We can't step on people's throats. For whatever reason, just too many stagnant offensive possessions. That's just kind of been our Achilles' heel on the offensive end. So it's not surprising. It's disappointing.
“It's almost like nothing comes easy for us. We know we're going to be in a dogfight and expect it to come down to the last shot.”
This series has taken a remarkable turn, with back-to-back impossible game-winning jumpers from Derrick Rose in Game 3 and James on Sunday. This was a crushing defeat in many ways for the Bulls, but they seemed to take it in stride, knowing the series is a long way from over.
“We're fine,” Joakim Noah said. “They hit a tough shot at the end. Move on from it, have a great day tomorrow and bounce back. We're disappointed we didn't get the win. We can win in Cleveland. We've done it before and it's going to be great.”
Rose scored a game-high 31 points, including a driving layup over James to tie the score with 8.4 seconds left. He went to the interview room and propped his 2-year-old son, Derrick Jr., onto his lap as he casually discussed the loss.
“We lost the game, for sure, but I love the mentality, the way the guys were talking in the locker room,” Rose said. “We know we had the opportunity to put them away, and we didn't.
“Get this game out of your head. This game's already over. Just enjoy your day with your mom, with your parents and really look forward to battling and competing again the next time we play.”
Plenty of crazy things happened during the final 8.4 seconds.
Cleveland coach David Blatt tried to call a timeout his team didn't have, the Cavs got a chance to draw up a final play when the referees chose to do a replay review after the ball was knocked out of bounds and they put 0.7 seconds back on the clock, which was vital to James getting off the final shot in time.
The reality is, the Bulls did so many things to lose this game, they have no reason to complain about anything but their own performance.
Rose and Jimmy Butler (19 points) played well, but no one else stepped up as a scorer to fill in for Pau Gasol, who did not play Sunday because of a left-hamstring strain. Noah was the team's No. 3 scorer with 8 points, to go with 15 rebounds.
Nikola Mirotic was 1-for-9 from the field. Dunleavy was 1-for-7. Noah and Taj Gibson shot a combined 6-for-19. The Bulls were outscored at the foul line 23-11 and outrebounded 44-40.
Most costly for the Bulls were two offensive dry spells. They couldn't score for nearly seven minutes in the second quarter, when Cleveland used a 16-0 run to go from 8 points down to an 8-point lead.
The Bulls recovered to win the third quarter 23-12, then were outscored 19-5 to open the fourth. The Cavaliers led 80-73 with 4:04 remaining, so the Bulls were fortunate to be able to tie the score late.
Butler hit a clutch step-back 3-pointer with 27 seconds left to make it 84-82. James was called for an offensive foul against Dunleavy when he threw an elbow trying to split a double-team, setting up Rose's tying drive.
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