Bulls and Wizards both make progress, but for very different reasons
WASHINGTON — It wasn’t exactly the kind of shot that Wizards rookie guard Carlton Carrington had been practicing.
In the first half Tuesday night, this year’s No. 14 overall NBA draft pick from Pittsburgh split the Bulls’ defense and had a clear path for an easy basket. The ball had other ideas. It slipped from Carrington’s hand as he was going up, and he actually flung it into the shot clock atop the backboard. Nothing but LED lights.
Carrington pressed his head against the padding of the basket support in embarrassment. This is what a truly painful rebuild looks like.
Behind a team-high 21 points and eight rebounds from guard Coby White, 19 points and 12 rebounds from center Nikola Vucevic and 18 points from guard Zach LaVine the Bulls handed the Wizards their 12th straight defeat — a 127-108 drubbing that dropped them to 2-14 on the season.
The Bulls kept themselves alive in the NBA Cup in-season tournament, improving to 2-1 in Group C pool play.
But more than that, the game was a chance for the Bulls’ front office to see just how bad other teams are willing to get in hopes of boosting their draft lottery chances for presumptive No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg next June.
Coach Billy Donovan wasn’t focused on that, however. His chief concern remains progress of any sort for the Bulls — offense, defense, pacing, rebounding, all of it.
“You look at a couple things in terms of what [the Wizards] are strong at,” Donovan said. “They’ve been up there with us in pace. They score a lot of points in transition. I think you look at it as, OK, what are the things that we’re supposed to be doing? How did we get back in transition against one of the better teams pace-wise? Do we make any steps there? What about the coverages, as far as the communication and the talk?”
The Wizards were an important steppingstone, but Donovan knows it could be a much different story against the Magic (12-7) on Wednesday night in Orlando.
‘I think you have to play who is in front of you, and you look at it as, ‘Did we do the things we’ve talked about doing?’ ” Donovan said. “No question there was growth. Coming out of this game, it’s not like, ‘Oh, wow, everything is fixed.’ My thing is, can we do it [Wednesday] night against a team that’s bigger, stronger, more athletic?”
The only real resistance from the Wizards came in the opening quarter as forward Kyle Kuzma (game-high 23 points) came out of the gate looking for a big scoring night, putting up 15 points on 6-for-11 shooting.
Not only did the Bulls (8-11) take control of the game in the second quarter, but they did so impressively, outscoring the Wizards 40-18 on 62% shooting. Kuzma and his teammates went relatively dry in the quarter: 8-for-22 shooting (36%) while turning the ball over six times.
The Bulls were excited by their progress.
“This is the NBA, so it’s great players all across the league,” guard Ayo Dosunmu said. “You really can’t look at records because each and every night you’ve got players who are hungry to prove themselves. You have to look at it internally of how you can get better.”
Unlike in other recent outings, the Bulls didn’t allow another 140-plus points, they kept the turnovers under 17 (11, to be exact), and they didn’t let up when they had the lead.
“What did we give up, 108?” Dosunmu said. “I thought we played a great defensive game. What was our turnovers, 11? That’s another thing we harped on — that progress.”