The Bulls fell to the Utah Jazz 102-98 on Thursday night for the second loss over their last three games. Here's some observations:
For better or worse, the Bulls were unafraid of Rudy Gobert
It was clear by the way the Bulls started that the impetus coming on was on the interior battle and making Rudy Gobert uncomfortable.
On the first possession of the game, Wendell Carter Jr. canned a 3 in Gobert’s grill and Lauri Markkanen put one on his head midway through the first. As a team, the Bulls attacked the rim persistently and routinely had two bodies on Gobert both on the glass on his own shot attempts.
As we know, the Bulls love to shoot around the basket — the question has always been whether they could do so efficiently. After a half, in the unlikeliest of matchups, the Bulls were 9-for-15 (60%) in the restricted area, led 28-16 in points in the paint and 25-21 on the boards.
But Gobert picked up his play in the second half and altered a ton of shots at the rim. After that aforementioned first half, the Bulls were 4-for-13 in the restricted area in the third quarter (6-for-22 in the second half). Gobert finished with 17 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks.
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The points in the paint battle ended 46-46. The Bulls ended the night 39.4% shooting to the Jazz’s 48.7%, though they outrebounded Utah 45-42.
It was… A game of runs
Cliche, yes, but tonight it was true. For a time, it was the Bulls on the right end. Though their shots weren’t falling early (just 38.1% shooting after the first quarter), Zach LaVine and Lauri Markkanen led a furious 15-0 run to vault the Bulls from down 47-43 to up 58-49 between the last two minutes of the second period and the 10:23 mark of the third:
The cornerstones finished the night with 44 between them.
The Jazz then responded with an 11-0 run of their own, which eventually swelled to 24-4 at one point. They held the Bulls to 25% shooting in the third quarter and led 76-70 entering the fourth.
Donovan Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic took turns
Mitchell started slow but got going in the first four minutes of the second quarter, scoring 6 points and tallying an assist with Shaq Harrison in the game to handle him after Kris Dunn had to leave with foul trouble.
He finished the night with 17 points, not his highest output, but dished out 7 assists, as well.
Down the stretch, it was Bojan Bogdanovic that stepped on the Bulls’ throats. He had 10 points in the fourth quarter, including a handful of back-breaking isolation buckets that kept the game just out of the hosts’ grasp.
Joe Ingles chipped in 10 assists and Jordan Clarkson was an early spark off the bench; he had 12 points and three 3-pointers.
The latest in a tough line of losses
When the Jazz stormed back in the third quarter and led most of the fourth, it seemed this game would mirror the Bucks loss: The Bulls hung with a superior team for half a game, then faded fast.
That wasn’t necessarily the case tonight. The Bulls scrapped, hung around and took this one down to the wire. Markkanen and Carter (18 points, 13 rebounds, 4 assists) made big plays and shots down the stretch. LaVine sent the crowd into a frenzy with his late 3-pointer to knot the game at 96, and the defense, in theory, made enough stops for this to be a win.
But it wasn’t. The Jazz had just enough shots go down and the Bulls didn’t. With the wide-openness of the East’s playoff race in mind, it’s still okay to take positives from this loss. Still, something is preventing the Bulls from getting over the hump, and if they don’t figure out the fix soon, this season’s going to get out of hand quickly.