Sitting in his media session before Tuesday night’s game against the Cavaliers, Bulls coach Billy Donovan was asked, one by one, about the playing status of his key players.
Nikola Vucevic?
“Out,” Donovan said.
Lonzo Ball?
“Out.”
Josh Giddey?
“Out.”
Kevin Huerter?
“Out.”
Add in that Patrick Williams and Ayo Dosunmu were already out with injuries, and the visit by the 50-win Cavs had all the makings of a long night.
Just as they did for 3½ quarters against the Pacers on Sunday, the undermanned Bulls put up a fight — until they didn’t. Thanks to a 25-6 Cavs run over a four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter, what had been a tied game with seven minutes left turned into a laugher, and the Bulls (24-38) lost 139-117.
Donovan sees the first-place Cavs (51-10) a threat to win it all.
“I think they’re very legitimate because if you look at their team, they are . . . not a one-trick pony,” Donovan said. “There’s a lot of ways they can beat you.
“There’s the [outside] shooting, but they also offensive rebound really well, and they can get to the free-throw line, so they can generate and manufacture other opportunities to score if they’re not shooting it great. Defensively, you have to have different things you can do, just based on matchups. You’re going against dilemmas, so to speak. They can match up against team strengths. They can do a lot of different things. There’s a lot they do at a very elite level.”
After Bulls center Zach Collins tied the game with a layup at the 7:04 mark of the fourth quarter, the Cavs didn’t just counterpunch. They flurried.
First there were back-to-back baskets from Jarrett Allen. Then it was former Bull Javonte Green taking over. Then back to Allen, who scored five of his nine points in the fourth quarter in less than 50 seconds.
The run kept going, and the Bulls couldn’t do much to slow it.
“Every time I watch [the Cavaliers] play, whether it’s against us or someone else, it kind of looks like that type of game they play,” guard Coby White said. “They’ve got a great team, a bunch of great players. They kind of turn it on in the fourth, get hot and go on to go on big runs.“For us, we’ve just got to focus on the controllables. I’m not even a big numbers guy, but in terms of rebounds, it was even. Turnovers, even. But what stuck out was the free throws.”
The Cavaliers had a 33-17 edge in that
department.
“They’re the No. 1 team,” White added. “You give them 33 free throws [and] it’s going to be hard to win those games.”
White led the Bulls with 25 points but couldn’t match Donovan Mitchell’s 28.
Donovan admitted there were “plenty” of defensive breakdowns over the final seven minutes, but didn’t just fault his players.
“We as a staff have got to help them, and they’ve got to understand, some of these guys being in this situation for the first time,” Donovan said. “We had a really hard time keeping the ball in control. We tried to trap [Mitchell] a little bit, but how we were going about trapping him, we’ve got to be better, quite honestly, as a coaching staff helping them in those situations. They started picking on matchups.”
