MIAMI — Nothing good lasts long for the Bulls this season.
Less than 24 hours after a short-handed roster clinched a galvanizing win over the Heat, the Bulls returned to the Kaseya Center to receive a crushing 134-91 smackdown in their final game of the series.
The Bulls should have been better equipped to fend off the Heat after regaining Coby White and Nikola Vučević, who sat on Saturday for injury and load management. Center Jalen Smith (calf) and guard Josh Giddey (hamstring) remained sidelined and guard Kevin Huerter (lower back) joined the injury report, but the Bulls inched closer to full strength with the return of White and Vučević.
The pair combined for 28 of Chicago’s 91 points as the rest of the roster seemed to come up empty in the final game of a grueling stretch of four games in five days played in three different markets. The Bulls managed to score only 13 points in the first quarter, slipping into a double-digit deficit that ballooned as the game wore on. They spent most of the fourth quarter lofting a white flag while playing deep rotational players like Yuki Kawamura, Lachlan Olbrich and Julian Phillips.
“They came into the game really physical, really took it to us and it didn’t help that we couldn’t make a shot,” Vučević said. “We just never really found a way to respond.”
Here are three takeaways from the loss.
1. Frigid finishing in chilly Miami.
Outside the arena, Miami experienced its coldest day since 2010 as temperatures dropped into the lower 30s early Sunday morning. Inside, that same cold crept into the Bulls roster, who failed to ignite any vestige of their typical shooting acumen at the perimeter.
The Bulls made only one 3-pointer in each of the first three quarters of the game. Ayo Dosunmu was the only starter to make a 3. Matas Buzelis went 0-for-5, while Coby White went 0-for-6 and Patrick Williams went 0-for-7 from behind the arc. Julian Phillips and Dalen Terry were the only players to make multiple 3s, both of which occurred in garbage time during the fourth quarter. The Bulls finished shooting at a 14.6% clip from 3-point range.
While the Heat’s 36.8% shooting wouldn’t have been particularly notable on any other night, they still went 14-for-38 from behind the arc to outscore the Bulls 42-18 from 3-point range.
2. More minutes for Yuki Kawamura.
After making his Bulls debut Saturday, two-way guard Yuki Kawamura returned to the lineup for considerable minutes for the team’s second night in Miami.
Kawamura played nearly 27 minutes in the loss, including 10 minutes and 30 seconds in the fourth quarter. He finished with six points and six assists as one of only two players with a positive plus-minus score.
3. Another lost series.
The Bulls dropped to 1-3 against the Heat in their final matchup of the regular season. The two teams played each other three times in four games due to a rescheduled game caused by excessive condensation on the United Center court earlier in January.
This result could be crucial for the final standings of the Eastern Conference, which currently features a familiar cast — Chicago, Miami and Atlanta — in position for the play-in tournament. The Heat now holds a tiebreaker over the Bulls in potential postseason positioning. The Bulls hold the regular-season tiebreaker over the Hawks.