CHICAGO — Was it a poor shooting night? Or was it a prelude to the type of post-All-Star basketball the Chicago Bulls will subject their die-hard, season-ticket holders to?
Boos rained from the crowd inside the United Center throughout the Bulls’ 132-92 trouncing by the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday. It was Chicago’s largest margin of defeat this season. The Bulls trailed by as many as 49 points and never led.
“It’s embarrassing when you’re sitting there and that’s happening,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said.
At halftime, the Bulls trailed 71-29, their lowest scoring output for any half this season. In a 6 1/2 minute second-quarter stretch, the Pistons turned their 22-point lead into a 45-point rout. During a 23-0 Detroit run, the Bulls missed 14 straight shots and committed four turnovers. They walked into halftime missing 22 of 23 3-point attempts.
With each miss, the chorus of boos grew louder — and the players heard the fans’ frustration.
“You heard it. We heard it. Everyone hears it,” Bulls guard Josh Giddey said. “Obviously, we hate that. Every time we come out on this floor, these fans show up and show out. It’s our responsibility as players to give them something to cheer for. (Tuesday), we probably deserved it. We didn’t give them anything to cheer for. We were down 40 in the first half, and that’s not acceptable.”
This isn’t how anyone envisioned the Bulls kick-starting their rebuild. Losses were to be expected, but a 40-point pasting on their home floor has nothing to do with life after Zach LaVine. The Bulls still have four first-round picks from the past six drafts on their roster who were selected by the franchise. Two of the team’s second-round selections over that span remain on the roster, while Giddey, Lonzo Ball and Nikola Vučević are key contributors. Chicago isn’t starting over with an empty cupboard.
It would be easy to dismiss Tuesday’s lopsided result as a one-off for the Bulls, their second-to-last contest before the All-Star break. Ball missed his third consecutive game because of illness/rest. The Bulls are only two games into integrating three new acquisitions from the LaVine trade. And when the Bulls and Pistons square off again Wednesday night inside the United Center, Chicago will have an immediate chance for redemption.
“We’re probably not going to go 0 for 20 to start the game from 3,” Giddey said. “So, that might help a little bit.”
But so much more than marksmanship is missing for the Bulls, and they know it. The got outhustled and looked overmatched physically, disjointed defensively and undisciplined strategically. While their shots clanged off the iron at one end — the ones that drew iron — Bulls players showed no resistance on the perimeter or inside the paint at the other. They fouled 3-point shooters, gave up layups and lob dunks and had no one who could stop Cade Cunningham and his crew from doing whatever they wanted.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well at all, but that happens,” Donovan said. “But there’s other things we’ve got to try to make up for: their overall physicality against us. We had a hard time breaking away, getting off screens. I thought they ran through us straight to the rim. That was the biggest difference in the game for me besides the shooting.”
It’s why Vučević refused to dismiss Tuesday’s blowout as a one-off event.
“We were the reason it wasn’t good,” he said. “We didn’t do the right things, so we’re not going to use that as an excuse. We have to accept that we weren’t good enough, and we have to be better.”
Chicago’s first two contests with new additions Kevin Huerter, Tre Jones and Zach Collins in the lineup have ended in deflating losses. Last Saturday, the Bulls held a 24-point lead at home against the Golden State Warriors before losing by 21 points. Huerter, a 26-year-old sharpshooter who’s mired in a career-worst season, is just 3 of 14 from the field and 1 of 7 on 3s in his first two Bulls appearances.
“It was all the way around: coaching, playing, everything. It was just bad,” Donovan said. “I don’t know what else to say about it. We have to own it. There’s no excuses.”
After the past two games, why would anyone believe this version of the Bulls can close the season competently? The Bulls say they want to win, and Donovan reminded the media before Tuesday’s game that his team remains in a Play-in Tournament race.
“When you’re creating meaningful games,” he said, “that’s a great opportunity for guys to grow.”
So far, the opposite has occurred for the new-look Bulls. This is now a different roster, with different challenges, than the iteration led by LaVine. At least that group could put the ball in the basket. But the Bulls lost their best shot creator and most skilled tough-shot maker when they traded LaVine. In the past six quarters, the Bulls have been exposed and exploited. And as the Pistons marched off the court for halftime, their entire traveling party lined up outside the visitor’s locker room and gave players low-fives and praise like they had just punched their ticket to the NBA Finals.
Giddey was hounded by Pistons menace Ausar Thompson, whose defensive tenacity prevented Giddey from getting by or orchestrating any offense for the Bulls. On multiple instances, Thompson also attacked Giddey directly. After Cunningham scored easily on Giddey on another possession, Donovan immediately substituted Ayo Dosunmu for Giddey.
Meanwhile, Patrick Williams, the No. 4 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, scored five points on 2-of-8 shooting in 20 minutes off the bench. A reserve role for Williams initially seemed to be a match for his talents. However, in the past three contests, Williams has scored 21 points on 7-of-25 shooting, connecting on only 2 of 10 3-pointers. He’s added eight rebounds, one assist and four turnovers in his past 65 minutes. Williams’ decline has reached the point that rookie Matas Buzelis is now consistently outplaying him.
Buzelis, who led Chicago with 12 points on Tuesday, has started the past three games, partly because of Ball’s absence and partly due to Williams’ ineffectiveness. The rookie forward has averaged 14 points on 55.6 percent shooting in 25.9 minutes as a starter. He also got attacked on defense by Thompson during possessions that weren’t pretty, displaying that Buzelis needs to get stronger. Still, a 20-year-old who few believed would play significant minutes this season has become the lone bright spot on a Bulls roster beginning to show many more changes are in order beyond LaVine’s departure.
“This is another test for us, and we have to find a way within this group to fix it, somehow, someway,” Vučević said. “There is no help coming. This is what we have, and we have to find a way. And I believe we will.”
(Top photo of Billy Donovan: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
