Game 1 loss a missed chance for Bulls? Or did they find what might work?
MILWAUKEE - Beauty and opportunity were in the eye of the beholder when it came to the Bulls' return to the NBA playoffs.
While the Bulls dropped a competitive Game 1 at Milwaukee 93-86 on Sunday at Fiserv Forum, a general question remained:
Was this a missed opportunity when the Bulls could have caught the Bucks in a typical opening-game snooze? Or was this a template for victory that the Bulls now need to duplicate while adding better marksmanship?
The Bucks have a history of losing the opening game of playoff series. They dropped five of six during the previous two seasons, including a Game 1 in the bubble against Orlando when Nikola Vucevic scored 35 points.
Vucevic tried to duplicate that effort Sunday, producing 24 points and 17 rebounds. But like most every Bulls player, his shooting touch couldn't be found. The Bulls shot 32.3% overall and made just 7 of 37 attempts from 3-point range.
Considering the Bulls finished the regular season on a steep slide and are heavy underdogs in this series, their level of competitiveness in Game 1 could be viewed as encouraging.
"I thought our guys were physical," Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. "The thing I enjoyed tonight about our team was I thought we put our body and our noses and faces in plays. You have to do that."
DeMar DeRozan hit just 6 of 25 shots for 18 points, while Zach LaVine went 2-for-10 from long range in the first playoff game of his NBA career. What the Bulls did well was scratch and claw their way back into the game after falling behind 9-0 at the start and by 16 points late in the first quarter.
"We know how hard it is to compete against the defending champs," DeRozan said. "We went out there and showed it defensively. We was tied in together, we showed each other we could do it, we could communicate, we could come together and withstand the punches thrown at us."
The Bulls crept closer in the second quarter and charged into the lead with a 15-2 run in the third quarter. Coby White had a 3-pointer, then fast-break layup to make it 69-64 with 2:52 left in the third.
From there, the opportunities to put pressure on the Bucks seemed endless, but the Bulls couldn't deliver. After Alex Caruso hit a corner 3-pointer to bring the Bulls within 75-74 early in the fourth, they missed their next 9 shots. Eventually White broke the drought with a layup, then Vucevic dropped in a post hook and the Bulls had their last lead at 78-77 with 5:54 left.
The Bucks responded with 8 straight points. The Bulls got back within 87-86 on a Caruso lay in with 1:36 left, but Milwaukee center Brook Lopez hit a short flip a few seconds later to push the lead to 3. On the Bulls' next two trips, Vucevic missed two point-blank lay ins and LaVine pulled up for a potential tying 3 that was off the mark with 29.7 seconds left and the Bulls started fouling.
"I thought it was a good shot," LaVine said. "A lot of my shots I thought were good. We were down 3, I got a really clean look. Brook was about six feet back. It was one of the cleanest looks I had of the night. It hit the back of the rim."
Donovan declined to complain about a loose-ball foul called on Patrick Williams with 2:05 left. As Bucks guard Jrue Holiday missed a jumper, Williams had rebounding position, but was called for a foul while Giannis Antetokounmpo was basically laying on top of Williams' back. A foul on Antetokounmpo would have been his sixth. The Bucks didn't score on the ensuing possession.
"Obviously, I thought it was over the back, but that was from my angle," Donovan said. "I think one of the things we've got to do in these playoff games is we have to move to the next play. At that point in time, I'll maybe argue it for 10 seconds and then you've got to move on, because you're not going to reverse the call unless you're going to challenge it."
This was the second game in a row Antetokounmpo was in foul trouble against the Bulls. He also collected 5 fouls and played limited minutes in the Apr. 5 game at the United Center.
Antetokounmpo, announced as a finalist for MVP with Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, finished with 27 points and 16 rebounds. But maybe the Bulls are starting to learn some lessons about how to keep him from building up speed and drawing constant contact.
"We got down 9-0. We didn't let that break us," DeRozan said. "We kept picking it up, picking it up. Now we understand and know how hard we've got to play defensively. Offensively, I guarantee you we're not going to shoot like we shot tonight.
"But games like this you've got to rely on your defense to give you an opportunity to win and we had an opportunity. A couple mistakes here and there late in the fourth quarter kind of let it get away from us. But that's a good learning test for us to show how hard we've got to play."
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