The roar of the United Center crowd drowned out Dalen Terry as he smashed his hands together.
The Chicago Bulls didn’t have much to cheer about. They trailed the Brooklyn Nets by double digits deep in the third quarter of a game that was meant to be a guaranteed win. Terry had just cut that lead down to seven points by scooping a pass to Ayo Dosunmu on the fast break, but that didn’t amount to much.
Still, the Bulls needed something. A little energy. A little edge. And even in limited minutes, Terry is always a reliable source of both.
Terry wasn’t afraid to run over a defender for a putback layup or bark at Ziaire Williams after colliding on a play. After missing the last five games with a calf strain, the forward had grown restless. That was a good thing. Terry is never quiet — and to break out of their current slump, the Bulls needed to get loud.
Even that wasn’t enough. The Bulls couldn’t stop the Nets from claiming their fifth win of the season, a dismal 113-103 affair that highlighted the weaknesses of both teams. Chicago took the latest blow in a five-game losing streak with something bordering on acceptance.
Things went from good to bad to worse in Chicago, a whiplash fast enough to steal the air out of this team’s lungs. The Bulls played Wednesday’s game without seven players: Zach Collins (left wrist surgery), Kevin Huerter (groin), Isaac Okoro (back), Jalen Smith (left hamstring), Coby White (left calf), Tre Jones (left ankle sprain) and Noa Essengue, who will miss the rest of the season after undergoing shoulder surgery.
Those absences tested the limits of the team’s concept of depth. Josh Giddey sat for fewer than five minutes of the first half. Coach Billy Donovan pulled out a rare white flag in the final two minutes, subbing in two-way players like Trentyn Flowers and Emanuel Miller to give his starters some sparing rest.
It would be enough to blame the loss on the injury report. But for the most part, the Bulls who were cleared to play didn’t show up. They coughed up five turnovers in the first quarter alone and took 12 minutes to score 11 points in the second quarter. The offense fell flat in the half-court, stalling out as players turned to isolation drives that have never profited for an assist-based team.
“I’m not going to make any excuses because I always think players want opportunities to play and compete,” Donovan said. “And you know what? For some guys, this may be the best opportunity they got. And to me, you should be playing all-out crazy hard and really, really physical. … And I did not think we did that.”
Here are three takeaways from the loss.
1. Josh Giddey continues his triple-double onslaught.
The Bulls still need a motor, even during a losing skid. And that has continued to be Giddey, who recorded another triple-double with 28 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in Wednesday’s loss.
Giddey struggled in the first half, turning the ball over twice as the Bulls found themselves mired in stagnant offensive sets. But the guard became a rare source of creativity as the game progressed, slinging eight assists in the latter half. Giddey stopped taking 3-pointers in the second half, forcing himself downhill to tally 13 points in a combination of paint and free-throw scoring.
This is Giddey’s 14th double-double and fifth triple-double of the season. He is nearly averaging a triple-double with 20.6 points, 9.9 rebounds and 9.1 assists per game.
2. Nikola Vučević fell flat.
Without two of their primary ballhandlers in White and Jones, the Bulls needed to rely more heavily on center Nikola Vučević to power the offense — both as a facilitator and a finisher. But the center never found his rhythm in the loss, turning the ball over six times as he allowed the Nets to speed up his pace of play.
Vučević went 6-for-18 from the floor against Brooklyn — including five misses from behind the arc — and didn’t tally a single assist. And while his defensive deficiencies weren’t showcased too heavily against a perimeter-heavy Brooklyn side, his inability to sustain the offense held the Bulls back.
“It was just a rough game,” Vučević said. “I just didn’t play really well and the team wasn’t playing well. You get down and you’re losing, your frustration is going to show at times. That’s part of it.”
3. Bleeding at the arc.
Call it luck or execution, it didn’t matter — the Bulls could not land a blow from behind the 3-point arc. The ball bounced off the backboard and the bracing and every conceivable inch of the rim, yet it refused to drop through the net.
The Bulls made only two 3-pointers in the first half. They finished the game shooting 7-for-30 (23.3%) from deep. Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams were the only players to make multiple 3s.
The Nets, meanwhile, continued to source their salvation from long range. Despite having one of the worst 3-point shooting percentages in the league (33.9%), the Nets prosper by simply slinging it. They average 41.2 shots from behind the arc per game. They make 14 of them. And that accounts for nearly 40% of their total scoring.
This pattern continued in Chicago. The Nets poured it on from behind the arc, making 19 3-pointers — more than half of their total points.