In the checkerboard that is the NBA, the Bulls during this six-game road trip have been jumping forward diagonally with mixed results, impressively capturing the men on the road from Milwaukee through Salt Lake City. But then being leaped over in Phoenix and San Francisco.
Until Sunday when the Bulls in Sacramento were crowned by the Kings in a 110-101 defeat.
Which—and you knew this was coming—left the Bulls deeply in the red, 9-14 for the season with this disappointing 2-4 road road trip. So if you think that was a tortured metaphor, then this season isn’t looking much healthier.
“I said this before the year started,” related Bulls coach Billy Donovan. “I talked to them right when training camp was starting. I knew this was going to be really hard for our team. I tried to talk to them, prepare them for it.”
It wasn’t unlike the message Donovan—coaches always being the biggest worriers—sent last season during high times when the Bulls even into February were flirting with first place in the conference. Donovan warned he didn’t like what he was seeing, and so Donovan said this season to be cautious with Lonzo Ball out, with Zach LaVine returning from another knee surgery, with the Bulls not about to sneak up on anyone like last year, and perhaps not articulating it, but everyone knew DeMar DeRozan wasn’t making all those miracles again. Not like Donovan knew for certain, but this also isn’t new in the NBA for teams that have reformulated like these Bulls.
“They were all, ‘We’re going to handle the adversity.’ Well, these are the moments you’ve got to able to work together and pull together and pull yourself out of it,” Donovan said. “To me, it’s very, very easy to play and compete at a really high level when things go well. To me, you find out what you are as a team by how much adversity you can endure and withstand.”
This would be the time as the Bulls Wednesday start four of five at home against Washington. At five games under .500, the Bulls are at their lowest point since the end of Donovan’s first season with the team in 2020-21. After 23 games that season before the Bulls had DeRozan and Nikola Vučević, the Bulls were the same 9-14.
But Donovan insists he still likes what he’s seen with this Bulls team and remains confident.
“I know the character of the locker room and the guys, and I know how much they care and I have belief we can do it,” Donovan said. “But we are going to have to pull ourselves out of it. We’ve obviously dug ourselves somewhat of a hole. We can be as frustrated as we want; that’s not helping anything. We’re going to have to find ways to help each other be better.”
That frustration Sunday was evident on the face, and perhaps in the intensity as well of Zach LaVine, who was the old Zach again, flying around for a season-best game 41 points, eight rebounds and four steals, leading the team in each of the categories along with most free throws and threes made.
Also technical fouls and exiting the court at the end with inflamed purpose.
But with DeRozan seemingly feeling the effects of the road trip with another poor shooting game, six of 18 for 18 points, and the Bulls principal nemesis of being on the defensive against a young, athletic, three-point shooting team, Vučević with 12 points and Patrick Williams with 10 were the only other Bulls to score in double figures. Meanwhile, a varied Kings offense with seven players in double figures and a huge 43-20 bench advantage enabled Sacramento to hang onto an 18-point lead when the Bulls predictably got within 88-87 early in the fourth quarter.
They don’t give in much.
But like against Golden State Friday, it just becomes too much to climb out of those so frequent deficits. And so it was the young Kings led by Malik Monk’s 20 bench points, a triple double with 17 rebounds for Domantas Sabonis, and aggressive defensive guard play from Davion Mitchell that held off the Bulls comeback.
The game finally turned with about three minutes left in a jumble of Bulls fouls, including a frustration technical from LaVine that was in the midst of seven consecutive Kings free throws after two DeRozan free throws got the Bulls within 105-97 with 3:05 left.
There were squeezed in a couple of Alex Caruso misses as the Kings dropped off him to crowd DeRozan or LaVine, and an offensive goal tending from Patrick Williams.
“We’ve got to have better awareness on the detail,” said Donovan. “It’s been one thing or another that’s kind of bit us, so to speak.”
Which has proven another dilemma for Donovan.
He’s appropriately moved to Caruso as starting point guard, which did give the starters more thrust and a seven-point first quarter lead before the substitutions. Williams returned to start with Javonte Green out with knee soreness. But Donovan also needs Caruso for his defense, which again drew the praise of the rival coach.
Kings coach Mike Brown said it was a big win for his surprising 13-9 Kings because that is, ‘a Chicago team that is physical defensively led by Caruso, who is one of the best on the ball defenders out there. To face that physicality and to get a win off the back-to-back (for the Kings) and grind it out the way we did when we didn’t shoot the ball well (30 percent on threes) was fantastic.”
Caruso was scoreless in 30 minutes, though his worth is seen in remarkable stuff like in the second quarter when he stole the ball from Monk, lost the ensuing fast break to Mitchell, but then stole back the ball from Mitchell to get Coby White a layup score. Which is another conundrum for the coach. White is the team’s best three-point threat off the bench, but Donovan needs Caruso’s defense and tends to ride him instead of White.
Meanwhile, in those last minutes of the fourth quarter when the Kings made a 17-7 run carried by those free throws to make it 110-97 with two minutes left, LaVine was the only Bulls player to have a field goal in the last four minutes. And that came with incredible effort on a rebound putback score among three Kings defensive players.
Like the newsman Howard Beale from the groundbreaking movie Network, Zach was as mad as hell and not going to take this anymore!
He started the game taking the ball and blowing by everyone for a three-point play and continued with 17 first half points and another 15 in the third quarter when the Bulls predictably charged back from a 15-point halftime deficit, this time 62-47. That made it 82-78 Kings after three quarters. But you know how we hear so often about the difficulty of digging out and all that.
LaVine led the Bulls with nine fourth quarter points, but wasn’t as sharp shooting three of nine. But DeRozan dragged to the close missing four of five shots in the fourth and the Bulls never got a chance to lead after pulling within that 88-87 with 9:31 left.
Monk sandwiched a huge degree of difficulty drive and a three around Williams dropping a ball out of bounds, making it 93-87 Kings with a Bulls timeout at 8:30. The Kings are a quality three shooting team, but not so much a making one this day missing two straight while the Bulls matched that. DeRozan then got his lone fourth quarter basket on a spin and three-point play. But the Kings took advantage of a Caruso switch onto Sabonis for a score and feisty Mitchell with a fast break score against the tiring Bulls. That made it 99-90 Sacramento with 5:45 left and another Bulls timeout.
LaVine got a driving foul for free throws and then a driving score, taking the usual closing offensive priorities from the struggling DeRozan. And then there was that remarkable LaVine rebound and score to make it 101-95 with 4:07 left. But the Bulls were reaching too much, both for redemption. And Kings players.
Which left a few foul words, the foul winds of defeat and a Bulls team left unkissed by enough success on this road.
“We play good when we’re behind and then we don’t get over the hump, so we got to figure it out,” said LaVine, who had a large continent of family in from Seattle for the game. “That’s for the leaders of the team to do. Band together; it’s us versus everybody. Nobody is going to help us dig out this hole besides us. That’s how we have to go about it. There will be tough conversations, there’ll be words said, but sometimes you need that.”
Talk about hovering through the fog.
Maybe some of those words will come from Donovan to DeRozan, who looks like he might need a break.
The amazing footwork, pump fake, mid-range scorer has had a difficult trip, the worst run of his Bulls tenure shooting just over 40 percent the last five games in the Western Conference and 10 for 33 the last two. He’s the rare warrior (they're definitely not in Golden State with all those days off) in the NBA who never skips games. Could it be catching up?
DeRozan for the second straight season by far leads the Bulls in minutes played after being the oldest player last season and second this season. His playing time even went up on this trip to close to 37 a game, and would have been more if not for the big loss in Phoenix. He remains among the league’s top 20 in minutes played and one of three players logging that much over 33 along with Kevin Durant and Kyle Lowry. It’s what helps qualify DeRozan as a star, but can there be diminishing returns?
Even if DeRozan remains typically sanguine about the Bulls’ prospects.
“I’ve got the most confidence in the world. Once it clicks, it’s going to click no matter who we’re playing,” said DeRozan. “It’s the beauty of sports, of life. When you get down, your true character shows of who you want to be. It’s on us to control that narrative going forward. It’s supposed to be frustrating, it’s supposed to hurt, it’s supposed to suck, it’s supposed to be all those things.
“Now how do we challenge ourselves to come out of this thing and make something out of it?” DeRozan continued. “A true competitor is going to pull through. We’ve really got to dig in and be conscious of that (early deficit), understand what is our flaws in moments of the game and try to pinpoint what is it that’s giving us that deficit that we’ve got to fight against. It’s the beauty of sports: When you are down, how do you respond from it?”
Me, me, pick me! Winning games?
Yes, that’s also why I didn’t get good grades in school.
The Zach attack was the big positive of the game, especially the way LaVine is moving. It seemed like the team was being extra cautious to begin the season with the consecutive games limitation provision and minutes restrictions. LaVine most often this season has found himself in the corners watching more than acting.
So he seemed Sunday like someone who threw away his crutches, pulled out all those wires and tubes and checked himself out and brought that intensive care to the basketball court. The West does bring out the poet in all of us. Hey, the sun. So that’s what it looks like.
It was a bright start for a change, the Bulls ahead early as the Kings first eight shots were threes. They missed most, four of 15 for the quarter as the Bulls went ahead 18-11. They trailed 29-27 after one... and then imploded.
Derrick Jones Jr. with three opened a bakery filled with turnovers, Goran Dragić added two, and DeRozan with one as the Kings bench made it 12-2 to start the second quarter. And then Monk recoved his robes and began making threes. LaVine held the fort with half the Bulls second quarter points, but the Kings fired ahead to a 61-43 lead with 11 second quarter Bulls turnovers.
“That really hurt us,” agreed Donovan.
The rest of us agreed.
Donovan did make a subtle shift back to the staggered rotation from last season with DeRozan out first instead of LaVine, and DeRozan starting the second quarter with the reserves. So that was new. Maybe it will take some time.
The Bulls again never got Vučević much involved, and for the second consecutive game played Andre Drummond limited minutes against a team using a small—or no—center. And the Kings were ready, one of Dragic’s turnovers when the Kings intercepted his lob to Drummond.
But LaVine, for sure, wasn’t giving in. He made a trio of three pointers in the first three minutes of the second half, and then buried his head and the Kings with a pair of driving scores and four free throws from two more drives. When DeRozan finished the quarter with an angry driving slam dunk, it was a game to be taken by the Bulls.
But it wasn’t, so again, it’s their move.
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