(670 The Score) In the wake of turning over about one-third of their roster with a pair of multi-player deals just before the trade deadline on March 25, the Bulls "kind of lost our way a little bit," as coach Billy Donovan put it.
It showed in their on-court play, as the Bulls went 3-9 in their first 12 games after the addition of All-Star center Nikola Vucevic and four others. The offense was underwhelmingly average, and a defense that had hovered around league average devolved into a bottom-five unit for that stretch.
"I don't mean this maybe how it's going to come out, but the trade kind of really messed up our team a little," Donovan said. "I don't say that in a negative way – what I mean by that is everybody kind of got out of their normal rotation, their normal how they were playing, how they were being used."
After a rut that led to heightened scrutiny externally, the Bulls have have taken a couple steps toward finding their way again. In one of its most impressive performances of the season, Chicago earned a hard-fought 102-96 victory at Boston on Monday evening to win its second straight after the 3-9 slump. With the victory, the Bulls improved to 24-33 and remained tied with the Wizards for 10th in the East, the last slot that gains entry into the play-in tournament.
In a physical contest that star guard Zach LaVine (health protocols) missed, Vucevic fulfilled the Bulls' vision for being a difference-maker, scoring a game-high 29 points on 13-of-23 shooting and adding nine rebounds. Early and then once again late with the game on the line, the Bulls made a conscious effort to play through Vucevic again and again.
His turnaround fadeaway gave the Bulls a 92-90 lead with 3:05 left, and a couple possessions later, Vucevic used his smarts and big frame to create a key bucket when he sealed off a Celtics defender in the lane, which gave point guard Coby White a wide-open lane to convert a layup for a 94-90 lead with 2:00 left.
"Billy didn't really say anything about playing off him," White said. "We just knew. Vooch is a bucket-getter. He scores, and he was scoring throughout the whole game, so of course we're going to play through the All-Star on the court and just play off him. We were able to do that and give him the ball in positions where he can be a threat scoring but also making plays for others. He did a hell of a job passing out of the post and making plays for others tonight. You've got to play off a guy that talented."
After struggling with his shot in the first half, White came up big late. He finished with 19 points, seven assists and just one turnover, and he also hit four clutch free throws in the final 16 seconds to hold off the Celtics.
"Our M.O. has been we can't finish games," White said. "I think the last two games we finished very well, and we took steps in the right direction. I think just coming into the games we just focused on getting stops, and that translated at the end."
Donovan acknowledged that with LaVine out, relying on Vucevic more, playing strong defense -- which the Bulls did Monday in holding Celtics star Jayson Tatum to 3-of-17 shooting -- and perhaps slowing the game down are going to have to be pillars for his team.
"I like the way we're trying to play on offense," Donovan said. "We had 30 assists again tonight. We're moving the ball. We're sharing the ball. Obviously, when you lose a guy that's giving you 27 or 28 a game, it's certainly very difficult to replace that with one person or even by a team. Zach is such an elite scorer, and he's just an incredible offensive player. But we're going to do it through ball movement and player movement, and we were able to do that. And we've got an opportunity with Vooch that we can dump it in the post to him to slow the game and give him his touches and let him play from there. And he's very unselfish in terms of throwing the ball back out. But I think we're getting a little bit of an understanding of how we've got to play."
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for 670TheScore.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.
