The Chicago Bulls sank back into a losing streak with a 108-100 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday.
The 100-point result was one of the lowest-scoring games of the season since Nov. 6, when the Bulls finished one of only three games this season with fewer than 100 points. And the Bulls continued the same frustrating trend of the season — if the offense can’t outscore their opponent, the defense can’t win the game.
Here are six takeaways from the loss.
1. The Bulls lost their offensive identity.
This matchup was a clear clash of playing styles. The Bulls are the fastest team in the NBA. The 76ers are the second-slowest. And most of the offensive battle was predicated on which team’s ethos would win out.
For the first quarter, the Bulls held the upper hand. They badgered the 76ers on defense and sprang into action quickly on offense, scoring 10 points in the fast break and taking 23 shots (including 12 from 3-point range) in the first quarter alone. But the 76ers ground that down to a halt in the second quarter, aided by the methodical offense anchored around center Joel Embiid.
The Bulls only scored eight more points in transition in the rest of the game. And while they kept their 3-point shot volume up — finishing with 54 attempts from behind the arc — the offense struggled to involve center Nikola Vučević for the second game in a row.
Vučević took only seven shots in the game, finishing with 13 points. Only two games after the center ripped off 39 points in a win over San Antonio, the Bulls offense will spend the next four days without a game searching for an answer to maintaining their shooting volume while utilizing the center more effectively.
“We’ve got to be able to post feed better,” coach Billy Donovan said. “(Vučević) could have had a much, much better offensive night. They were switching him out top, so the 3s weren’t there. He rolled into the post. I thought there were way too many passes deflected, tipped away, where we’ve got to find him. … He’s so unselfish. We’ve just got to be better at executing passes to him.”
2. Second quarters are trending in the wrong direction.
For the second game in a row, the second quarter broke the Bulls in an otherwise even performance.
The Bulls scored only 17 points in the second quarter Sunday while shooting 2-for-12 from behind the arc. No player made more than one field goal in the quarter as Vučević scored a team-high four points. It was a complete offensive breakdown, fueled by a slight shift in defense from the 76ers — and a complete collapse in transition points as the 76ers finally began to hit their shots.
While the Bulls went 5-for-20 from the field in the second quarter, the 76ers went 16-for-25 — and only three of those misses occurred inside the 3-point arc.
3. Joel Embiid continued his dominant trend in Chicago.
The key to the game-changing second quarter came down to Embiid, who provided his best outing of an up-and-down season. Embiid missed his first seven shots of the game — but once he warmed up, he returned to his typical form, scoring 31 points while tallying 12 rebounds to anchor the 76ers offense.
Embiid has always seemed to hold a particular knack for beating the Bulls. He held a career 14-2 record against the franchise entering Sunday. The Bulls’ first win against Embiid didn’t come until a double overtime victory in March 2023 — nearly nine years after he was drafted into the NBA.
For the Bulls, only one player could provide a defensive counter: guard Lonzo Ball, who was deployed in a series of double team traps on post-ups to barrage and bother Embiid into mistakes.
Donovan said Ball was cleared by the medical staff prior to the game to elevate his minutes restriction to 20 minutes, which allowed him to play eight minutes in the fourth quarter, including the last two minutes in the closing rotation. But the Bulls couldn’t slow Embiid without Ball on the floor.
4. Matas Buzelis grew to meet the moment.
The growth of rookie Matas Buzelis remains a crucial bright spot for the Bulls, even in losses. Buzelis has often thrived against lower-level teams and struggled against heavy hitters like the Boston Celtics. The 76ers don’t fall cleanly into either category, but their stars still offer a challenging test — and Buzelis passed on Sunday.
The rookie tallied five points, three rebounds and a block in nearly 24 minutes against the 76ers. Donovan played Buzelis for nearly 14 minutes straight in the second half. It was his longest stretch of the season — and earned by his rebounding and defensive rotation, which was crucial for the Bulls in the fourth quarter.
Although Buzelis was frustrated with his shooting (2-for-7 from the floor, 0-for-5 from 3-point range), his ability to affect the game regardless of scoring is a promising sign for a young player trying to earn a regular rotation.
Buzelis also embraced the opportunity to face off against Paul George, who he idolized as a young player. And after trying to keep it all business during the game — “On the court, I’m not friends with anybody,” the rookie said — Buzelis spoke to George after the game and received encouragement from the veteran.
“He told me to just keep pushing,” Buzelis said. “It means a lot. I try to instill his game into my workouts and I try to reflect what he does on the court.”
5. Andre Drummond was welcomed home.
Sunday marked a homecoming for former Bulls center Andre Drummond, who played the last two seasons in Chicago before returning to Philadelphia as a free agent.
Drummond could barely walk five feet at the United Center before the game Sunday without being bombarded with hugs from Bulls staffers and players. Donovan praised Drummond pregame for his energy and effort during his tenure with the Bulls.
Although Drummond has been a crucial backup for the 76ers this season — plugging in for Embiid throughout the starter’s stop-and-start injury recovery — he played less than seven minutes on Sunday, all of which came in the first quarter. Drummond tallied four points and seven rebounds in that initial rotation. But once Embiid was up and running, the 76ers didn’t return to their backup center for the duration of the game.
6. The Bulls honored Bob Love.
The entire Bulls roster wore No. 10 pins to honor the memory of Bob Love, who would have turned 82 on Sunday. The Love family was in attendance for the game and the Bulls took several moments to highlight the deceased star.
Love died on Nov. 18 after a long battle with cancer. He is memorialized by the Bulls as a member of the Ring of Honor and was the second player to ever have his jersey retired by the team.
