An all too familiar feeling of flatness for the Bulls at midway point
NEW YORK – It was the official halfway point of the season for the Bulls.
Forty-one more games to try and turn the season around or 41 more games to head to Miami for the annual play-in disaster, take the humiliation on the chin like a champ, and start rolling out the usual offseason false promises to the media?
If Friday was any indication, bet on the latter.
For the second time this season, the Bulls watched an up-and-coming Brooklyn team made up of a handful of rookies outlast them and outclass them, as the Nets held on to win 112-109 at the Barclays Center.
Held-on wasn’t an understatement, either, as the Bulls overcame a 20-point fourth-quarter deficit and actually grabbed the lead on a Tre Jones layup with 11.4 seconds left.
Michael Porter Jr. had the last laugh, however, scoring on a driving layup of his own to put the Nets up a point.
No worries. Bulls coach Billy Donovan is a wizard with inbound plays and had Mr. Game Winner – Nikola Vucevic – ready and willing. One problem: Vucevic appeared to be mauled and when the play couldn’t develop it was a second timeout.
“I just felt like (Nic Claxton) holding me off and grabbing my jersey,” Vucevic said. “He didn’t really allow me to move much, but that time of the game it has to be something really significant for them to make the call.”
Donovan went back to the drawing board, this time with Jones inbounding. The result was not good. Rookie Drake Powell tipped the inbound pass and grabbed the loose ball for the steal. Noah Clowney ended up getting fouled, all but icing the game at the free throw line.
And just like that the Bulls were 19-22 for the third time in the last four years at the midway point.
“It’s hard to judge,” Vucevic said of an all too familiar place in the standings. “We’ve had a lot of injuries, but I guess we’re kind of the same as we’ve been the last four years, kind of the same situation. There’s some things we could have done better, some games we dropped we didn’t play as well.”
Put the Nets game in that category. Yes, the late-round flurry was impressive, but it was a situation the Bulls shouldn’t have been in.
“It’s hard when you fight back from being down 20,” Vucevic continued. “You put in so much energy and then towards the end the little plays matter. They just made that one extra play and won the game. Overall, we should have done more over the course of 48 minutes. We can’t start playing once we’re down 20. It still sucks when you lose this way.”
Not that it was a real surprise. Besides losing to the Nets twice so far, the Bulls have also dropped two games each to 10-win New Orleans, 10-win Indiana and 15-win Charlotte.
Inconsistency is the on-going issue through the first half, but Donovan took a smaller picture of what’s gone right and what’s still an issue.
“Offensively from a year ago to this year, I think we’ve been able to get downhill a lot more and play at the rim a lot more,” Donovan said. “I think that’s been good. I think our shot profile has been good in terms of the balance of trying to eliminate some of those tough non-paint twos and generating threes. I like the way we’ve moved and shared the ball.
“On the defensive side, although at times we’ve been small, we’ve been pretty good. The other part for us defensively where we need to get better is the fouling and the turnovers. Defensively, we have not been a high turnover team. We’ve got to get better with more deflections. We’ve been OK at the rim defensively, haven’t been great.”