Sluggish after twin celebrations, Bulls still win eighth straight
This game looked like a New Year's Day hangover feels. Sluggish, slow-moving and just generally unpleasant.
But Billy Donovan, back on the bench after spending five games in protocols, was able to be Mr. Brightside after the Bulls escaped Orlando with a 102-98 victory.
"I was really pleased tonight," Donovan said, "from the standpoint of what we did defensively."
The problem, Donovan explained, was the Bulls had maybe been too good offensively. Over the previous seven games, the Bulls shot an impressive 45.2% from 3-point range. For the season overall, the Bulls lead the NBA in 3-point percentage at 38.6%, despite shooting the fewest attempts of any team.
"And I just don't know if we're able to sustain shooting the basketball at that clip for the rest of the season," Donovan said. "I think it's probably unsustainable.
"But the other thing that I thought really, really slipped was defensively. If you look at our transition defense numbers, our rebounding numbers, you look at our fouling numbers, you look at rating over the last seven to 10 games, it's probably been like 26th or 27th (in the league). That's really a hard formula to be a really good team."
So after two fantastic finishes spanning the New Year, the Bulls' offense was brutal at times. They started the game 3-for-19 from the field, 0-for-8 from the 3-point line and trailed 21-10 late in the first quarter.
Still, the Bulls (25-10) won their eighth straight game and increased their lead in the Eastern Conference standings, because Brooklyn lost to Memphis and Milwaukee dropped a home game to Detroit.
"This is a game, to me, that if you don't defend and shoot it the way we did, we would not have had a chance to win," Donovan said. "That to me is the encouraging part. Now, did we play great? No, by no stretch of the imagination. I'm not even saying that.
"We talked a lot about defense this morning and I think the guys came out and tried to do as good a job as they possibly could have tonight."
Lonzo Ball, one of the Bulls' better defenders, returned from protocols Monday, but Donovan didn't want to put it all on Ball or the injured Alex Caruso to carry the defense.
"I think some of it does not necessarily have anything to do with Lonzo or Alex," he said. "What I mean by that, transition defense has nothing to do with that. Blocking out and rebounding has nothing to do with that. Fouling has nothing to do with that.
"You get on a win streak and all of the sudden you don't think about any of these other things. I didn't think defensively we were going in the right direction."
The Bulls seemed to be on the verge of sending Orlando on vacation a few times, but the Magic kept scrapping and pulled within 88-87 with four minutes left on free throws from Wendell Carter Jr. and one of several spinning drives by rookie Franz Wagner.
In one sense, this game was a vision of an alternate path for the Bulls. Without the Vucevic trade last March, the Bulls could still have Wendell Carter Jr. at center, and it was their draft pick used to select Wagner.
Carter made his case with 21 points and 10 rebounds, compared to 13 and 17 for Vucevic. Wagner scored 22 points.
Carter missed a corner 3-pointer that could have tied the score with 3:26 left. The Bulls answered with a jumper from DeRozan and 3-pointer by LaVine to make it 95-87.
DeRozan led the Bulls with 29 points, while LaVine added 27 and Coby White had some timely baskets to finish with 17.
The Magic played an overtime game in Boston on Sunday, while the Bulls were on their sixth game in nine days. Both teams seemed a little worn down. There were two occasions when DeRozan was knocked to the floor and took a while to get back on his feet.
When the game was over, DeRozan went back on the court to shoot free throws, something he said is a habit he's done for many years. He was 7-for-13 during the game.
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