10 observations: Troubling Bulls trends continue vs. Heat originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Chicago Bulls have problems to correct outside of the injury report.
That much was clear in Monday’s 113-99 loss at the Miami Heat, which wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. The Bulls trailed by 21 when head coach Billy Donovan waved the white flag midway through the fourth.
The result drops the Bulls to 39-23 on the season — two games back of Miami for the top spot in the East — and 0-3 against the Heat, clinching defeat in an important head-to-head tiebreaker. It also continues a trend of shoddy results against the NBA’s elite, which Donovan declined to attribute to their shorthandedness.
“We have to get battle-tested in some of these games. We just don't have a lot of guys that have gone into this kind of experience,” he said. “I think it’s really, really good for us. That’s how I look at it. It's not concerning as much as it's shining a light on what really goes into this.”
Here are 10 observations:
1. To call the Bulls’ first quarter disjointed might be understating matters. In the first 8 minutes, 54 seconds of the game, the visitors gave away seven turnovers — then, out of a timeout at the 3:06 mark, committed a five-second violation for No. 8. At the end of the opening frame, the Bulls had four assists against eight cough-ups and trailed 30-21.
Suspect decision-making was a part of that dynamic, but credit Miami’s switchable, highly-anticipatory defense for being one step ahead of almost every Bulls pass, with Jimmy Butler swiping four of the Heat’s six first-quarter steals.
2. The wheels appeared primed to fall off when the Heat opened a 19-point lead five minutes into the second quarter. But between the 6:34 and 3:01 marks of the period, the Bulls engineered a 14-2 run to trim a 47-28 deficit to 49-42.
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The Heat led by nine at halftime, but that felt positive considering the precipice on which the game at one point teetered. The Bulls actually shot better in a first quarter they lost by nine (9-for-18) than a second quarter they tied 25-25 (10-for-23), but committed just one turnover in the latter period while forcing four from Miami, which allowed for more offensive possessions against scrambled defense.
3. That progress was quickly spoiled in the third quarter, which the Heat won 36-21. It wasn’t just that the Bulls shot 36.4 percent in that period while allowing Miami to go 13-for-22 (59.1 percent). They also committed multiple defensive lapses in the quarter’s closing minutes, and conceded multiple sprint-out buckets and avoidable charity-stripe trips in turn.
“Our consistency on the habitual things you have to do, like, shot-fake discipline, leaving our feet, fouls, contesting a shot and leaking out and not coming out with a long rebound, pick-and-roll coverage… All those things over a period of time add up,” Donovan said. “When you’re playing against good teams, you’ve gotta have that consistency. And we haven’t been consistent.”
To Donovan’s point, the Bulls allowed the Heat 26 free-throw attempts (fouling them 24 times), nine offensive rebounds and 14 fastbreak points, in addition to the host’s solid shooting percentages.
4. With 18 points, DeMar DeRozan saw his career-high 10-game streak of 30-point games snapped. He was one 30-spot shy of tying Michael Jordan’s franchise record.
Still, DeRozan had a month of February to remember, averaging 34.2 points 6.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 8.8 free-throw attempts with 55.3/40/87.7 percent shooting splits in 13 games. He scored 30 or more points in 10 of those contests.
5. Bam Adebayo won the big-man matchup with Nikola Vučević handily, posting 15 points, seven rebounds, five assists and two steals and blocks apiece, while the Bulls’ center notched 14 points, seven rebounds, two assists and a steal.
More than raw stats, Adebayo’s range and activity at the defensive end combined with Butler to wreak a ton of havoc for a Bulls team that committed 16 turnovers for the game. Adebayo’s quickness advantage showed on a handful of dribble-drives at the offensive end, too.
6. Given how far into the mud Miami’s defense drove the Bulls’ offense, it was a bad night to also struggle on jump-shots. The Bulls missed their first six 3-point attempts, and 12 of 13 in the first half, en route to a 7-for-29 performance from behind the arc, overall. Coby White (3-for-7), Zach LaVine (2-for-8) and Ayo Dosunmu (2-for-5) combined for those makes, while Vučević, Troy Brown Jr., DeRozan and Malcolm Hill went a cumulative 0-for-9.
The Bulls shoot the NBA’s second-highest percentage on 3s (on low volume), making the dynamic all the more painful. The Heat, who rank third in 3-point percentage, shot 12-for-31 (38.7 percent).
7. Gabe Vincent is at the very least approaching Bulls killer status. The third-year guard, remember, posted a 16-point, four 3-pointer fourth quarter in a Miami win in Chicago on Nov. 27. In this one, he matched Tyler Herro for the team’s high-scoring total with 20 points on 7-for-13 shooting, 4-for-8 from 3.
That he drew LaVine fourth personal foul on a charge early in the third quarter, and authored multiple heat-check triples, while occupying the inactive Kyle Lowry’s spot in the starting lineup was all the more impressive.
8. The Bulls had just eight bench points before Donovan surrendered, trailing 107-84 with just under six minutes to play. Miami, meanwhile, got 20 points from Herro alone, and another 13 from former Bulls two-way player Max Strus.
Even at full strength, the Bulls have been near the bottom of the league in bench points for much of the season. But the spotlight shined brighter on the role players in this one, given that none of the Bulls’ “Big Three” of DeRozan, LaVine or Vučević were at the top of their respective offensive games.
9. One bright spot was Ayo Dosunmu, who bounced back from an outing against Memphis in which he struggled to defend Ja Morant and went scoreless on two field-goal attempts with 18 points and six assists against Miami, shooting 8-for-14 from the field.
While the Heat eventually overwhelmed the Bulls en masse, Dosunmu also had his share of nice sequences defending Butler in the second quarter, blocking a layup and forcing tough misses on a fall-away and driving layup on back-to-back-to-back possessions.
10. The result drops the Bulls to 6-15 against current playoff teams — with seven of those losses (without a win) coming against the Heat, 76ers and Bucks. They have just one win over a playoff team since the calendar flipped to 2022: Cleveland, at home, on Jan. 15.
No, the Bulls weren't at full strength for all of those contests, and have particularly struggled at the defensive end without Lonzo Ball or Alex Caruso since mid-January. But it’s a troubling trend nonetheless, and one they’ll need to reverse if they want any hope of a deep postseason run. As the owners of the NBA's most-difficult remaining regular-season schedule, they'll have plenty of opportunity.
Next up: At the Hawks on Thursday to tip off the month of March.
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