Bulls reverse flagging energy with decisive win over Cavs
The Bulls could easily be challenging D'Marco Jackson and Northwest Indiana as the sports talk of the town. The chatter would focus on the promising future and star potential of our local NBA team.
All they had to do was win the draft lottery last year.
Alas, it was Dallas — a team that finished with the same 39-43 record as the Bulls — which landed the lucky ping pong balls.
No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg became the youngest player in NBA history to score 40 points on Monday. That news just emphasized an often forgotten truth of NBA team building — luck is the strongest ingredient to creating a winner.
The Bulls did manage to reverse their downward trend Wednesday, posting their largest margin of victory this season in a 127-111 win over Cleveland at the United Center.
Josh Giddey posted a triple-double with 23 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. Coby White scored 25 points, Nikola Vucevic added 20, and the Bulls (11-15) put seven players in double figures.
“I still feel there's a lot we can improve upon,” backup center Jalen Smith said. “We on our way back. Slowly, but surely, we're working our way back.”
The Mavericks (10-17) actually have a worse record than the Bulls right now, but a rising star brightens any rough loss or regrettable trade.
Granted, some NBA teams do succeed without a ton of luck. Indiana hasn't drafted higher than No. 6 since 1988 but made the Finals last season through some very smart trades. Oklahoma City traded for likely repeat MVP Shai Gilgeous Alexander. The Knicks didn't draft any of their starters.
Then again, the Bulls' brightest moment since the championship era ended resulted from the lottery win that landed Derrick Rose. Victor Wembanyama to the Spurs, Cade Cunningham to the Pistons, that was both lottery luck and fortunate timing, since plenty of No. 1 pick haven't become superstars over the past 12 years.
It might seem strange that Flagg is the youngest 40-point scorer when he spent a year at Duke. That's because he graduated high school in three years and reclassified. Flagg turns 19 on Dec. 21. LeBron James was 19 years, 88 days when he tallied 41 points on March 27, 2004.
The Bulls have some potential for a brighter future with Giddey, Matas Buzelis and White, if he sticks around. But the roster badly needs more size, defense and physicality on the front line.
One promising sign is they finally have three healthy big men in Vucevic, Smith and Zach Collins, who missed the first seven weeks with a broken wrist. They've used more lineups with two of those big men on the floor, which allows Buzelis to play his more natural small forward. Maybe this trend can send the Bulls back to their glory days of late October.
“We've got to hold ourselves to a standard that no matter who's in the game, no matter who's out, we've got to play to our standards and play to our principles,” Smith said. “That's something we're building upon, getting everybody back (from injuries). I feel like in some of those early (losing) stretches, we let it get to us and we didn't step up to the challenge. But now we are.”
There's still one injury to deal with. Ayo Dosunmu missed his third straight game with a right thumb sprain.
It helped the Bulls' cause Wednesday that Cleveland power forward Evan Mobley was sidelined by a calf strain. That meant one less big body to push them around, and the Bulls responded by dominating points in the paint 68-52. The Cavs are 3-7 in their last 10, and host the Bulls on Friday.
“I think there was certainly enough in our locker room to play better than we were playing,” coach Billy Donovan said. “But when you get bodies back, that always helps.”