The NBA Store isn’t offering the authentic locker room baseball caps and t-shirts, but the Bulls with Thursday’s 127-105 victory over the Detroit Pistons did clinch something.
Which is the franchise’s first post season game since 2022, and home for that matter, likely April 17, and certainly against the Atlanta Hawks in the play-in tournament to select the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds for the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Bulls will need to defeat Atlanta and then the loser of the Nos. 7/8 game Friday in the home arena of that losing team. If the Bulls win both games, they’d likely open the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs April 21 in Boston.
“I love it,” said DeMar DeRozan, who carried the easy Bulls win pretty much from the start with 39 points, his third consecutive game with at least 30 points and fourth in the last five games. “I love those moments; it’s what you play for, to be in those moments, have those moments, be tested in those moments.
"We wanted to make sure we secured our first game at home in front of our fans,” said DeRozan. “Redeem ourselves. We’re playing for everything. It’s tough to go on the road to try to win multiple games. At home play in front of your crowd and generate the energy you need to win and carry that over to the road and try to win a road game as well. Put all the positives we’ve had this year together. We’ve got to throw it all out there in the play-in game. We’ve had a lot of great moments this year team wise, individually. We’ve got to put all that together to give us an opportunity to win and get into the playoffs.”
It wasn’t such a great moment Thursday against one of the worst teams in NBA history playing out a desultory season with most of its starting players missing. But the Bulls needed a win to assure the United Center game to open the post season tournament, and at least the Bulls took it seriously.
DeRozan was on target and alert from the tip, scoring 10 points in the first quarter. And while the Pistons hung around in a 31-30 Bulls first quarter lead, the outcome was really never in doubt despite two Pistons wins over the Bulls this season. Andre Drummond and Ayo Dosunmu remained out with injuries joining the quartet of Bulls long gone for the season. But Detroit was without Cade Cunningham, Isaiah Stewart, Quentin Grimes and Ausar Thompson. And though Detroit coach Monty Williams stood up a lot, it wasn’t clear why as his team roamed around somewhat indifferently, 20 turnovers for a whopping 36 Bulls points.
The Bulls got ahead by nine points at halftime and piled it on afterward, leading by double digits the entire second half and up to 28 as the Pistons players three nights before with little stirring on their house were likely having visions of Cancun beaches dancing in their heads.
It will certainly be a gift for them when this one is over.
The Bulls, however, hope to keep working a bit longer, and they got a boost from a sharp shooting Nikola Vučević with 27 points, Coby White with 18, Dalen Terry with 12, Alex Caruso with eight points and 10 assists and Javonte Green with 11 points, eight rebounds, two blocks and a steal.
“DeMar was unbelievable for the whole game, terrific scoring the ball,” agreed Bulls coach Billy Donovan. “I thought we moved and shared the ball. We found Vooch in the pocket a lot and he was able to make plays as well. I thought collectively we shared the ball and tried to defend.
“I'm happy for these guys,” Donovan added. “Sometimes you look in the moment at where you are at and you don’t get a chance to look at where you started. It was a rough start for us and I appreciate the guys in that locker room sticking together, fighting and not quitting and not giving up, not making excuses or pointing fingers, trying to rally and play together and playing better. As the season continued to go on we lost players and we never wavered. I think what they’ve done to get to this point is great. There’s obviously still a lot in front of us in terms of opportunities in what you want to create. After that Boston game in the in-season tournament when we got blown out on their court (and dropped to 5-14), I felt like from that point we at least started to put together better basketball. It’s an 82-game season. You don’t get a chance to wipe out 20 games. So we had to overcome that and I thought the group did that.”
The Bulls are 38-42, and now 33-28 since that rocky, rickety start. So they are hoping to ride that improvement and perhaps positive momentum through the play-in gauntlet. While the Bulls have clinched a game with the Hawks, it’s still unclear who will be the Nos. 7and 8 teams. And there’s even some uncertainly about playing days because of potential arena conflicts.
That all should be worked out by the time the Bulls finish the regular season with games Friday in Washington and Sunday in New York, the latter changed to a national ESPN game (noon) because the Knicks could be in position to move up to the No. 2 seed.
The Bulls likely will cut back on some playing time for regulars these next two games with nothing to play for. But Donovan said some players prefer not being off for long stretches, so regulars may choose to play despite heavy minutes loads all season. He said there will be discussions with the players, management and medical staff to determine rotations for the last two games.
Even if it’s the first home post-season game for the Bulls in two years, it’s no guarantee.
“I always thought our place is a great place to play,” said Donovan. “It’s an electric crowd, an electric environment. Obviously, it’s up to us to give them something to cheer about, something to be excited about. I think you always want to have that opportunity to play there. If we are fortunate enough to get through and get into a playoff series you’re going to have two games there, so it’s great to be able to do that. But if you look at some of the things that happened last year, some teams went on the road and won. Atlanta went into Miami and won, Oklahoma City won, we won in Toronto. It is nice to play at home, but it doesn’t necessarily insure anything.”
Perhaps because the Bulls won in Atlanta this season and the Hawks won in Chicago.
The Bulls won two of the three games between the team, and the Bulls actually may have a bit of an advantage because Atlanta just got Trae Young back from injury. Though he’s their big name scorer and All-Star, the Hawks played their best defensive game against the Bulls earlier this month in the United Center with Young still recuperating from finger surgery.
The Bulls won the first matchup back in December with Vučević out injured, 118-113. Drummond starting for Vučević had his best game of the season with 24 points and 25 rebounds. Then in February, Dosunmu, who has a history of excellent scoring games against the Hawks, had a career-best 29 points in a 136-126 Bulls win. Young, also a notoriously poor defender, has struggled routinely against Caruso, shooting 6-of-17 in the first game and 3-of-14 in the second. But without Young in that April 1 game, the Hawks prevailed 113-101.
Though the matchups have hardly been a rivalry since some of the great Michael Jordan/Dominique Wilkins shootouts and dunkfests of the 1980s, many of the Bulls/Hawks games have been extraordinary in recent years with a four-overtime Bulls victory a few years back that was the third highest scoring game in league history, and the teams splitting buzzer beating wins last season.
And now as the players like to say from experience, it’s the NCAA tournament stage with the one-and-done format for at least the 9/10 teams in the play-in. The Bulls believe they’ll be ready.
“I feel like we all believe in eachother,” said White. “Obviously, we’ve got a lot of guys out. But no matter who’s playing we believe in each other and are all here for a reason. It’ll be good for us to play at home. I know the United Center will be jumping; it’s always jumping. Last year we were the 10 seed, so both of our games were away. So it’ll be good to get the home crowd behind us. Being able to play games at home is always big for us. We’re a team, and we all really get along with each other. We all continue to uplift each other through everything, so it’s been a fun season for sure.”
May as well extend it, eh?
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