The Chicago Bulls finally snapped out of their winter doldrums with a 116-111 win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday — and they found their footing by shaking up their offensive focus.
The Bucks were somewhat defanged as Giannis Antetokounmpo sat out for a fourth consecutive game because of illness. But that didn’t lessen the challenge for the Bulls, who failed to hang on to a lead after storming out to a strong start in the first quarter.
By halftime, their 13-point lead had dwindled to two, a familiar sight for a Bulls team struggling to establish and defend advantages.
A 9-0 run in the third quarter put the Bucks briefly ahead by three. From there, it was a matter of trading blows.
Damian Lillard racked up an 11-0 run on his own to put the Bucks up by four. The young core of the Bulls roster — Josh Giddey, Patrick Williams and Coby White — stormed back with a flurry of clutch baskets. And the Bulls managed to hang on for only their fifth win of the season at the United Center.
“We’ve been a hell of a road team and a terrible home team,” guard Zach LaVine said. “If we can just take the same aggressiveness that we play on the road with here to play in front of the fans, that’s how it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to be a good home-court team with the home crowd pulling behind you. I think we showed that tonight.”
Here are six takeaways from the win.
1. Josh Giddey bounced back from injury.
After missing the last four games with a sprained ankle, Giddey made his impact felt immediately, tallying his second triple-double in a Bulls uniform with 23 points, 10 assists and a team-high 15 rebounds that included two offensive boards.
Giddey hasn’t always been the go-to guy for the Bulls in the clutch. Earlier in the season, coach Billy Donovan began to cycle the point guard out of late-game rotations in favor of players such as Ayo Dosunmu, who was out with a strained right calf Saturday.
But in the final minutes against the Bucks, Donovan chose to give Giddey another look in the clutch. He earned that trust for at least another game, hustling over and around screens to deliver more consistent defense and nailing a 3-pointer with 71 seconds left to give the Bulls a one-point edge.
Giddey delivered five points, four rebounds and one assist in the final five minutes, helping the Bulls to their seventh clutch win of the season.
2. Coby White drove a shift to the rim.
The Bulls have become increasingly reliant upon the 3-pointer this season — especially against teams like the Bucks, who use their size advantage to clobber the Bulls in the paint. But with Antetokounmpo out, the Bulls took a different tack.
Their 36 3-point attempts was one of the lowest totals of the season for the Bulls, who average 44 shots behind the arc. They were content with a rare night of being outscored from 3-point range, making 14 to the Bucks’ 15.
Instead, the Bulls attacked the paint while it was vulnerable without Antetokounmpo, finding Nikola Vučević down low and pushing hard to the basket in transition. They outscored the Bucks 56-42 in the paint, a rarity this season.
White (22 points) led the charge to the rim. While he still can’t quite locate his 3-point shot, going 2-for-6 behind the arc as he works on snapping a cold streak from long range, it didn’t matter Saturday.
On the crucial late 3-pointer from Giddey, White drove into the paint to draw three defenders before kicking the ball out. That play encapsulated the importance of White’s pressure on the rim, which consistently pulled the Bucks defense out of position.
3. Matas Buzelis threw a block party.
Buzelis might be the best shot blocker on the Bulls roster. The rookie tallied two blocks in his first six minutes against the Bucks, moving him to first on the team with 24 blocks despite being ninth in minutes played.
Blocking shots is one of many weak points for the Bulls defense — they average the eighth-fewest blocks in the league — but Buzelis provides a promising future for the team’s rim protection. The rookie is developing a keen understanding of how to use his 6-foot-10 wingspan to affect shots, particularly when rotating off the ball.
Buzelis finished with two points and three rebounds in 13 minutes in addition to his two blocks..
4. Nikola Vučević reached a scoring milestone.
Vučević matched Giddey with a team-high 23 points to become the second center in league history with at least 16,000 points and 800 3-pointers in his career. The Bucks’ Brook Lopez is the only other center to accomplish this feat.
That combination reflects the adaptability Vučević has shown during his career, going from a rim-focused center who rarely took 3s to a long-range sharpshooter who leads the Bulls in 3-point accuracy (45.6%). He went 3-for-7 behind the arc against the Bucks.
5. Ayo Dosunmu is sidelined with a calf strain.
The Bulls played the second of at least six games without Dosunmu as he recovers from a lower calf strain in his right leg. He suffered the injury in Monday’s loss to the Bucks and will be reassessed Jan. 6.
Dosunmu is averaging 12.6 points, 4.8 assists and 3.9 rebounds and has started in 17 of his 30 games this season — a common theme for Dosunmu, who has started a slim majority of his career games despite never being named an outright starter.
The loss is significant for the Bulls. Dosunmu has anchored the second unit, especially with Lonzo Ball still limited by a minutes restriction. Dosunmu’s length, defensive versatility and speed on the fast break are crucial to the Bulls backcourt.
“He has done a terrific job of really forcing (the) tempo of how we want to play stylistically,” Donovan said. “The thing that was concerning, even coming out of the Atlanta game, our transition numbers were way down. I do think that was a direct reflection of him not playing.”
6. The Bulls signed Emanuel Miller to a two-way contract.
The Bulls made an adjustment to the bottom of their depth chart Saturday, signing two-way forward Miller and waiving two-way guard DJ Steward.
Miller began this season with the Texas Legends — the Dallas Mavericks’ G League affiliate — where he averaged 18.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 16 games. He went undrafted this year after playing three seasons at TCU and two at Texas A&M.
