Bulls' bid for No. 8 spot gets rejected by Magic
With a chance to climb into eighth place in the East, the Bulls ran into a wall.
The Orlando Magic blocked 13 shots, limited the Bulls to just 14 points in the fourth quarter and recorded a 103-95 victory Monday night at the Amway Center.
The Bulls (12-20) failed to record their first three-game winning streak of the season. They'll now get a four-day Christmas break before hosting Atlanta on Saturday.
"They stifled us at the rim," Bulls coach Jim Boylen told reporters after the game. "We had open shots that we could make, open 3s that we could make. That's kind of the battle of wills. Both teams are very good defensively."
The 13 blocks were one short of the season high in the NBA this season. The Bulls blocked 13 shots themselves on Dec. 4 against Memphis.
The Magic (13-17) is one of the league's better defensive teams, and one of its calling cards is a tall front line of Nikola Vucevic, Jonathan Isaac and Aaron Gordon. Gordon and Isaac swatted 3 blocks each, while 7-foot Mo Bomba got 4 off the bench.
The Bulls responded to the interior defense by shooting from the outside. They went 13-for-37 from 3-point range, which isn't terrible, but they needed a few more. Zach LaVine led the way with 26 points and Tomas Satoransky had 20, while Lauri Markkanen was the only other Bulls player in double figures with 10 points.
"They're a long team and we knew that coming in," Markkanen said. "But I think we've got to do a better job with our passes - on-time, on-target and execute. We had our moments. There are things we can fix. Just got to do it better."
The score was tied early in the fourth quarter, but the Bulls had more and more trouble solving the Magic's defense. Orlando had 7 blocked shots in the fourth quarter while the Bulls managed just 6 field goals.
Satoransky and Thad Young hit consecutive 3-pointers to bring the Bulls within 92-89 with eight minutes left. But the Bulls missed their next 5 shots from long range and scored just 2 points over the next five minutes.
Trailing 99-91, the Bulls went back to attacking the paint. Kris Dunn scored on a driving lay-in, then a LaVine dunk closed the deficit to 4 points with 2:36 left.
After a Markelle Fultz lay-in made it 101-95, the Bulls came up empty on three straight possessions while trailing by 6, then a tip dunk by Gordon pretty much settled the outcome.
LaVine finished the night 3-for-13 from 3-point range and hit 8 of 26 shots overall. Satoransky, a fourth-year pro, scored at least 15 points three games in a row for the first time in his career. This was Satoransky's sixth 20-point game in the NBA.
"We had to play over the top of them for sure," Boylen said. "I thought we had some opportunities that just didn't go for us. We had wide open 3s that we've got to make, especially on the road. We've been making those. So we'll take them and learn from it."
The Magic won 42 games last season and made the playoffs, while the Bulls won 22. So it was not at all logical to assume the Bulls would roll into Orlando and stake their claim to the No. 8 seed.
The season isn't even halfway over and the Bulls' schedule will get tougher. They need to keep focusing on game-to-game improvement, not a playoff spot.
Strus out with knee injury:
Bulls two-way player Max Strus suffered a torn left ACL while playing for the Windy City Bulls on Saturday at the G-League showcase in Las Vegas. He's expected to have surgery in about three weeks. The former DePaul forward was averaging 18.2 points and 5.8 rebounds for Windy City and appeared in a couple of NBA games with the Bulls.
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