Chicago Bulls lose track of shooter, lose game to Dallas
The stage was set for another Jimmy Butler game-winner, but an old friend had other ideas.
Dallas' Wes Matthews, a teammate of Butler's for one year at Marquette, knocked the ball out of Butler's hands. It rolled to Dwyane Wade in the corner, but his 19-foot jumper at the buzzer rimmed out and the Chicago Bulls lost to the Mavericks 99-98 on Tuesday night at the United Center.
Butler finished with 24 points, a career-high 12 assists and 9 rebounds, but was bottled up for most of the fourth quarter by Matthews, who seemed to be on a personal mission to stop Butler.
"Marquette ain't easy to go to," Matthews said in the locker room. "You've got to grind, got to fight. You've got to compete. We've had those battles plenty of times. It's just a bigger stage."
Butler did put the Bulls ahead 98-96 by rising over Matthews and hitting a 20-foot jumper with 22.8 seconds left. On the other end, Dallas got a switch they wanted, matching Deron Williams onto Nikola Mirotic. Williams drove past him, Dwyane Wade slid over to help and left Matthews wide open for the go-ahead 3-pointer with 11.7 seconds on the clock.
Ironically, if the Bulls had just let Williams finish the layup, the score would have been tied.
"It was a bang-bang (play)," Wade said. "There was a lot of communication going on actually from the sideline, guys trying to help us out and tell us where to be. Deron kind of got a step on someone. I was staying home with Wes and kind of got yelled at 'my rotation' and got stuck in the middle of doing it.
"I wanted to stay home and don't want to rotate. It was one of those things, Deron made a great pass and Wes made a great shot. We switched the pick and roll the way we wanted to. Unfortunately he got a step and it made our defense move to the point where we didn't necessarily want to. He got his guy a good shot."
Once again, the Bulls continued a bad habit of losing at home to a team with a losing record. They've also lost to Minnesota, Portland and the Lakers.
"Once we want to be a better team, when we all want to start winning games like this, then we will," Wade said. "It's right there for us. We all have to do our jobs. There's still a lot of season left. It's not maddening, not frustrating, just taking the hits and moving on."
Seth Curry, younger brother of Steph, had his outside shot working. Doug McDermott, coming off his career-high 31 points Sunday at Memphis, did not. Curry scored 18 points, while McDermott went 3-for-10 from the field.
Still, Hoiberg went with the formula that has worked lately, a closing lineup of Butler, Wade, McDermott, Mirotic and, this time, Robin Lopez, who scored a season-high 21 points.
It went OK at times. Butler found a cutting McDermott for a lay-in, then Wade's jumper put the Bulls ahead 94-90 with 3:19 left. But then the Bulls stumbled on pick-and-roll defense, giving Harrison Barnes an open 3-pointer. On Dallas' next trip, Williams worked Mirotic onto the baseline and hit a shot to put the Mavs ahead.
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