A 3-minutes, 23-second span Thursday night in Atlanta encapsulated everything wrong with the Chicago Bulls this season.
With just under two minutes left in the third quarter, the Bulls were as close to a guaranteed victory as possible — leading by the Hawks by 21 points and holding a win probability of 99.2% as they coasted toward the final 12 minutes of regulation.
But when the final buzzer sounded, the Bulls staggered away from a 141-133 loss.
It all came down to a brief stretch in the fourth quarter. Three minutes, 23 seconds isn’t all that long, even in the context of an NBA game. But on Thursday, it was long enough for the Hawks to score 20 unanswered points as the Bulls collapsed, plagued by two familiar weaknesses.
The first problem: When push comes to shove, the Bulls don’t have a defense. Not really. And with Ayo Dosunmu and Lonzo Ball both unavailable, the Bulls floundered fully into disrepair. The Hawks muscled inside for offensive rebounds and slung 3-pointers and charged up the paint. And in return, the Bulls offered no resistance as the Hawks scored 50 points in the final quarter.
The second problem: The offense is one-dimensional. The Bulls usually are unconquerable when hitting from 3-point range. But when the shooting from behind the arc dries up, they still haven’t found another source of scoring. During their scoreless stretch, the Bulls missed three shots, had two others blocked and committed two turnovers — a reflection of an inability to pressure the rim.
By the time the Bulls finally snapped the 20-0 run, the game was lost. The Hawks had taken a four-point lead with two minutes remaining. Frustration reigned as shots continued to fall short and off target. When Nikola Vučević chucked the ball downcourt with 29.6 seconds remaining — earning a technical as he showed frustration with a late foul — the Bulls seemed to have accepted their fate.
The Hawks outscored the Bulls 31-7 in the final 5:23. Jalen Johnson scored a career-high 30 points and added 15 rebounds, and Trae Young had 27 points and 13 assists for the hosts.
The Bulls lost their third straight and dropped to 10th place in the Eastern Conference. Here are three takeaways from the loss.
1. Jevon Carter delivered standout shooting.
December games in the NBA often call for an unlikely hero. Injuries begin to escalate from nagging to debilitating, the winter ushers in a wave of illness and coaches begin to look to the end of their benches for a solution.
On Thursday, Carter was that solution. The Bulls were missing four regular rotation players: Lonzo Ball and Matas Buzelis were sidelined due to illness while Ayo Dosunmu (Achilles) and Josh Giddy (ankle sprain) remained unavailable.
Before Thursday, Carter had scored a total of 22 points in 61 minutes this season. He spent a five-game stretch at the start of December confined to the bench as a healthy scratch. But Carter was ready to offer a crucial boost when he was injected back into the rotation Thursday.
Carter couldn’t miss in the first quarter. He went 6-for-6 from 3-point range, scoring 19 points as the only Bulls player to make a 3 in the quarter. Carter cooled off in the second half but finished with a season-high 26 points on 9-for-15 shooting — including 7-for-11 on 3-pointers — and added five assists in 35:57.
2. Zach LaVine caught fire in a third-quarter frenzy.
LaVine showcased an uncanny ease to score in the quarter. He went 6-for-6 from 3-point range and missed only two shots from inside the arc, rattling off 22 points and adding four assists as the Bulls offense suddenly clicked into gear.
The Bulls made 10 shots from behind the arc in the 44-point quarter and finished 22-for-43 (51.2%) from 3-point range. Coby White’s shooting was also vital in the third as the guard regained some footing, going 3-for-5 from deep. He finished with 23 points.
LaVine poured in a season-high 37 points, hitting 14 of 25 shots overall and 7 of 9 3-pointers.
3. Dalen Terry had a rough first start.
Because of injury and illness, the Bulls tapped the third-year wing to join the starting lineup for the first time this season.
Terry struggled with that assignment from the opening whistle, picking up an offensive foul off a sloppy moving screen in the opening two minutes. He ultimately played only 9:08 in the loss, finishing with four fouls, one turnover, zero points and one assist.
