CHICAGO (670 The Score) – Amid the best stretch of basketball of his career, guard Josh Giddey authored his first signature moment as a Bull on Thursday evening.
Capping an insane final minute, Giddey hit a 47-foot buzzer-beating 3-pointer from half-court to lift the Bulls to a 119-117 win against the Lakers at the United Center. Giddey’s heroics came after Lakers guard Austin Reaves hit a driving layup with 3.3 seconds left to give his team a one-point lead. With the Bulls out of timeouts, Giddey quickly grabbed the ball, inbounded it to forward Patrick Williams in the backcourt and ran up the center of the floor. Williams threw a pass back to Giddey, who took a few steps and launched a game-winner that send the crowd into pandemonium.
“There’s probably not another place I’d want to do it – at home in front of the crowd that we had tonight,” Giddey said. “It was a pretty special moment. As soon as it left my fingertips, it looked good. And that’s kind of why I held my follow-through the whole time. I had that feeling when it left it. It looked straight, it felt good. It was special.”
Giddey held a pose until it went in, then matriculated toward the corner as his teammates chased him and a mob celebration ensued with the first row of fans. It was the first buzzer-beating bucket of the 22-year-old Giddey’s NBA career. He estimated he had three or four buzzer-beaters throughout his entire basketball career dating back to his youth.
With so little time remaining and no timeouts, the Bulls didn't have many options other than to freestyle the final seconds, coach Billy Donovan said. If they'd waited to set up a play after Reaves' bucket, it would've also allowed the Lakers to set up their defense, he said. So Donovan liked that Giddey took the ball out of the hoop fairly quickly.
Giddey's heave was the longest buzzer-beating shot in Bulls history.
“I was expecting (Williams) to go, but he threw it back,” Giddey said. “The defense kept backing up, backing up and I wasn’t going to be able to drive around them or get close, so I just pulled up from wherever I did and tried to let it go the best I could. The rest is history.
“It was a special moment. You kind of black in those type of moments.”
Giddey had 25 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists in the win, posting his third triple-double in the past six games. He’s averaging 22.0 points, 9.6 rebounds and 10.0 assists in his past 10 games.
While Giddey’s half-court 3-pointer won it, it was a steal by him moments earlier that put the Bulls in a position to pull off the wild win after they trailed by as many as 18 early in the fourth quarter. Williams hit a 3-pointer from the left corner with 10.3 seconds left to pull the Bulls within 115-113, after which Giddey stole a weak inbounds pass from Lakers star LeBron James intended for Reaves in the corner. Giddey then hit guard Coby White (team-high 26 points) on the left wing for a 3-pointer that gave Chicago a 116-115 lead.
“He kind of just bounced it,” Giddey said of James’ pass. “I knew it was going to Reaves, and he bounced it. I was surprised at how easily I was able to grab it. And then I was going to go to the rim and I saw guys collapsing and Coby was wide open on the 3-point line. He’d hit a couple – give it to him and trust him to do the right thing and he did it.”
Giddey’s big plays late came after he airballed a floater from the right baseline with 13.7 seconds left as the Bulls trailed 113-110. James was lurking to contest the shot, but it was nonetheless a play that left Giddey frustrated.
What it didn’t do was affect his effort for the final 13.7 seconds.
“It slipped on the floater,” White said of that Giddey airball. “But for him to have the resiliency to still stay locked in to the game and don’t let it affect him in a way negatively and then hit the game-winner (after he) got the steal also, like that shit is big. That’s big. That’s next-play mentality, and it rubs off on everyone.”
When it was all over, the Bulls could barely believe what had happened. White called it the “most entertaining” win of the Bulls’ season.
“The probability of us winning that game was probably very low, but we defied the odds,” White said. “It was a fun game to be a part of. That’s a game that I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.”
The Bulls have now won four straight games and nine of their past 11 to climb to 33-40. They’re ninth in the East, trailing the eighth-place Magic by 1.5 games. The Bulls hold that tiebreaker as the two teams fight for positioning in the play-in round.
“We’ve shown over the last month, six weeks that we can compete with anybody,” Giddey said. “The way we play the game, it wears teams down. We get up and down. We run. We put heat on teams to get back. A lot of veteran teams don’t typically want to get back and (compete) in transition. So we understand our game plan and our identity, and I think when we stick to it, we’re a tough team to beat.”
Cody Westerlund is an editor for 670TheScore.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.