Nothing about the final four seconds of Wednesday’s 128-126 win over the Utah Jazz seemed to happen on purpose.
Everything was haphazard, down to the final play of regulation at the United Center. Coby White launched a 3-pointer that clanked off the rim, sending a rebound scattering toward the baseline. Isaac Okoro attempted a newfound form of levitation to keep the ball in bounds, tapping the ball to himself, then to Tre Jones. The guard wobbled on the ball of one foot like a kid playing hopscotch, balancing the ball in the palm of his hand as he flipped his head around to survey the court.
But the Chicago Bulls didn’t need to be in control. They just needed an opening — however narrow — to slip through. Jones found that half-second pocket of good fortune under the basket, slinging a one-handed pass to catch Nikola Vučević with his hands held high, giving the center enough time to tip in a game-winning layup with 4 seconds to play.
The victory added another item to a growing list of clutch performances from Vučević, who has made 19 baskets — including six 3-pointers — when a game was separated by five points or fewer in the final five minutes this season. (Vučević disparaged this basket as being a lower-rate “game-winner” because it was a second-chance layup rather than a pull-up shot.)
“You take it as any other shot you would,” Vučević said. “From all the work I put in daily and been doing for all these years, I just have the trust in the work I put in. You want to come up big for your team in those moments. It’s the ones you dream of when you’re little.”
It was the second time Vučević imposed an outsized footprint on the final minute of the game. Thirty five seconds earlier, he crushed the ball out of Kyle Filipowski’s hands as the forward attempted to drive to the basket, stopping a shot before it fully began.
Vučević scored 16 of his team-high 35 points in the fourth quarter. He missed only two shots in that span, both from 3-point range. His game-saving effort came less than 24 hours after he played 37 minutes in a loss to the Houston Rockets, spending most of the game trapped between the equally brutal boulders of Steven Adams and Alperen Şengün.
For any player, that feat would be a challenge. For a 35-year-old who ranks as the oldest player on the team, it seemed near herculean — even though Vučević shrugged it off as just another night’s work.
“I don’t think Vooch gets enough credit,” coach Billy Donovan said. “He plays. And I have such respect for him because I get to see it every single day. He’s in there, he’s working on his body, he’s lifting. He fights through stuff. He doesn’t (only) play when he’s 100%. Responding the way he did tonight, I think, speaks to how professional he is.””
Wednesday wasn’t a particularly proud victory for the Bulls. The Jazz were without Lauri Markkanen and Jusuf Nurkić. Even with the Bulls missing Josh Giddey and Zach Collins, it shouldn’t be necessary to go to the wire against this short-handed Jazz team.
But after losing four of their last six games, any win is worthy for the Bulls — especially when it keeps them above the Milwaukee Bucks to hold onto the 10th spot in the Eastern Conference.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
1. Truncated night for Matas Buzelis
Late in the third quarter, Buzelis turned away from the basket and scrunched up his face in a grimace of disgust.
It was a natural reaction. One second before, his fourth attempt from behind the 3-point arc had fallen flat, arcing hopefully upward before completely missing the front of the rim. It was his third miss of the night from long range.
Buzelis barely had been on the court for a minute when he took that shot. Donovan pulled him early in the third quarter after a pair of missed box-outs and several defensive miscommunications. He played just shy of six minutes in total in the third quarter, then sat for the entire fourth.
This is abnormal for one of the Bulls’ most important players. Buzelis had to fight for minutes early in his young tenure with the Bulls, but he averaged 31 minutes over the last seven games while Giddey was sidelined with a hamstring injury.
Donovan attributed Tuesday’s game against the Rockets — in which Buzelis scored 19 points in just under 37 minutes — as one factor for the second-year forward’s deflated performance against the Jazz. He finished with seven points on 3-for-7 shooting from the floor, logging two rebounds and two assists in only 18:34.
2. Sensabaugh sensation
One direct byproduct of the Bulls’ inability to defend the point of attack is the possibility in any game for a relatively unknown player to rip off an ungodly amount of points.
On Wednesday, that was Brice Sensabaugh — a 2023 late-first-round pick who has never averaged more than 11 points per game in three seasons with the Jazz. The forward couldn’t be silenced in the first quarter, racking up 21 points on 8-for-9 shooting (3-for-3 from 3).
Sensabaugh cooled off for the rest of the game but still finished with 43 points after a 15-for-22 shooting performance off the bench.
3. Injury report
After reevaluation Wednesday, Giddey will begin to attempt a ramp-up period over the next week in what Donovan described as a “very important” stretch of his recovery from a hamstring strain. Giddey will undergo a series of tests in noncontact drills that will determine his readiness to return to practice. Donovan is hopeful Giddey will be cleared for contact by the end of next week, but that timeline is still dependent on the guard’s reaction to an increased workload.
Backup center Zach Collins received less optimistic news after meeting with a specialist Wednesday to receive a more detailed recovery plan for a sprained big toe. Collins must remain in a walking boot for at least two more weeks before he can be reassessed. Donovan said Collins will not play again before the All-Star break.