The Chicago Bulls weren’t expecting any gifts Monday evening when they played host to the Milwaukee Bucks in a pre-holiday game at the United Center.
But the Bucks provided a couple anyway.
Coach Doc River played the role of Secret Santa by sitting the Bucks’ two biggest stars — Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was dealing with back spasms, and Damian Lillard, who was out with a non-COVID-19 illness.
Billy Donovan wasn’t buying into the notion the absences were the equivalent of free, easy-out parking for a Bulls team in need of all the help it can get, pointing to the return of Khris Middleton and the Bucks’ size advantage. The Bulls also were without Josh Giddey, who has a sore right ankle, and Lonzo Ball, who was sick.
Oh, and Donovan also mentioned the aftereffect of the Bucks’ NBA Cup title in Las Vegas, for what that’s worth.
“That tournament is tough, it can take a lot out of you, as long as it is and there’s a lot of intensity toward it,” the Bulls coach said. “Going into it, with the way they were playing, you have to consider them playing as well as anybody in the league.”
The Bulls, coming off a spanking by the Boston Celtics in which they were held under 100 points for only the third time, were trying to head in the short Christmas break on a high note against their I-94 rivals, whom they’ll see again soon.
After a road game Thursday in Atlanta, the Bulls return home to play the Bucks again Saturday. They haven’t won the season series since 2015-16, when Fred Hoiberg was coach.
Bulls-Bucks is a rivalry in name only. Usually when one of the teams is good, the other is either mediocre or bad. For a hot minute it looked like the start of an intense era in January 2022 when then-Bucks guard Grayson Allen’s flagrant foul on Alex Caruso fractured Caruso’s right wrist, putting him out of action for nearly two months. That moment, combined with Ball’s left knee injury earlier that month, signaled the beginning of the end of the Bulls’ window to contend in the Eastern Conference.
The Bulls lost in five games to the Bucks in the first round of the 2022 postseason and only reached the play-in tournament the last two years, leading to the trades of Caruso and DeMar DeRozan. Now they’re back in no-man’s land with a sub-.500 team that’s not good enough to be a serious playoff contender but not yet bad enough to finish in the bottom 10 and keep their first-round pick from going to Oklahoma City.
How the Bulls fare over the next month could determine whether they deal Zach LaVine before the Feb. 6 trade deadline, a move that would figure to help them tank their way to the bottom 10. LaVine is averaging 22 points and shooting a career-best 44% from 3-point range, returning to All-Star form after February’s season-ending right foot surgery.
As LaVine goes, so go the Bulls.
The Bulls beat the Bucks 133-122 in their first matchup at Fiserv Forum. It was their second game of the season, back when players were just starting to get accustomed to the new, faster-paced offense. They’re averaging 118.1 points per game, a pace that would beat the franchise record of 114.9, set in 1969-70 during the infancy of the Bob Love-Chet Walker-Jerry Sloan years.
When the teams met again on Nov. 20 in Milwaukee, the Bucks pulled away for a 122-106 win behind Antetokounmpo’s 41 points.
Milwaukee, surprisingly, hasn’t cashed in on Antetokounmpo’s dominance other than its championship in 2021. Like followers of the 2016 Cubs, Bucks fans felt as though their championship team would be back for at least one or two more titles with youth on their side.
So far, that has been a pipe dream. They’ve lost in the first round of the playoffs the last two seasons, including to the Indiana Pacers last year with Antetokounmpo injured. When the Bucks started 2-8 this season, it looked as though their era of contending was ending, and rumors spread that Antetokounmpo would have to be dangled at the trade deadline.
But Rivers knew how to keep the negativity from creeping into the locker room, and he kept things from going under while they regrouped. The Bucks entered Monday with a 13-4 record since that woeful start, including their win over OKC in the NBA Cup final, which doesn’t count in the standings.
Rivers insisted Monday that there are different ways of convincing a team its record is not reflective of its abilities.
“It depends on your team,” Rivers said. “Every group is different. I don’t think this team was ever fazed by it. We believed we were going to be a good team. We had to find the right combinations as a coaching staff to use, and we were in search of that. Our guys had to buy into our defense. We completely overhauled our defense.
“And it helps when the ball goes in. We have great shooting, and at the same time, no one was making shots. When that happens, it’s a perfect storm and you just don’t win games. But you saw it. I don’t think anybody really believed we would continue to struggle.”
The Bucks came out of it, giving the Bulls something to shoot for as they try to avoid the possibility of a full-scale rebuild that would likely follow a LaVine deal.
