(670 The Score) Bulls fans got their small measure of closure in the team's otherwise disappointing 118-112 loss to the Bucks on Friday evening at the United Center.
In the fourth quarter, Bulls forward Derrick Jones Jr. was called for a flagrant-1 foul after he hip-checked Bucks guard Grayson Allen on a drive to the hoop. It came in the teams’ first meeting since Bulls guard Alex Caruso suffered a fractured wrist on Allen’s flagrant-2 foul on Jan. 21 in Milwaukee. Caruso has been sidelined since.
“Get a stop,” Jones said of what was going through his mind on the play as he delivered a hip-check foul. “That’s all that goes through my head. I’m not a dirty player. Honestly, I talked to every ref that was there today. I didn’t think that was a flagrant. They said I hit him in his head. I didn’t even feel it. I just felt him bump my hip and fall. That’s all I felt.”
Jones knew exactly whom he was fouling, but he made nothing more of it a day after Bulls big man Tristan Thompson had made something of it by proclaiming he had an issue with Allen and that he wanted Friday to be a “chippy” game.
“You’re all just trying to make it something it ain’t,” Jones said. “I ain’t even tripping off that. It’s basketball. I want to get a stop as much as they want to get a stop on the other end. What happened in Milwaukee, we didn’t like it. It’s obvious we didn’t like it. Nobody liked that. But I mean, I’m not going to go out there and just try to take a man out. That’s not who I am. If I get a foul in the process of trying to get a stop, then so be it. But I ain’t going to try blatantly take that man out. He got a family to take care of. Why would I do that?”
Jones played a solid game Friday, recording five points and four rebounds in 16-plus minutes and adding energetic play in sparking the Bulls in a big third quarter. He also had a highlight-reel dunk on Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo in the third quarter.
“I don’t nobody can just with me in this world, to be honest with you,” Jones said. “That’s just how much confidence I have in my athleticism and how much confidence I have in my finishing ability.
“That’s up there, but it ain’t my best. It ain’t even close to my best.”
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for 670TheScore.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.