(670 The Score) Bulls star guard Zach LaVine took responsibility for what he called a "bad read" on an offensive sequence in the final minute of Chicago's 114-109 loss to Philadelphia on Saturday evening at the United Center.
With the score tied 109-109, LaVine missed a 20-foot jumper from the left wing with 37.8 seconds left when he had center Nikola Vucevic wide open in the nearby corner. After reviewing the play, LaVine took the blame for what he thought was a bad decision that hurt his team in a key moment.
"After looking, I should've thrown it to Vooch," LaVine said. "He was wide open. It was a bad read on my part. Obviously, me getting to my spots, I work on that. I'm more confident than anybody to be able make that shot. Just if you're going to take it, make it. If not, I got to find Vooch. I wish I was able to re-do it. That's a learning process of us being in that situation. They hit DeMar, and I don't know how they rotated. I saw Tobias (Harris) on me and somebody pinned on, you never really have an open guy in the corner like that. But that's for me to read. I made that mistake."
After rebounding the miss, the 76ers scored the go-ahead basket on the other end when star center Joel Embiid hit a 3-pointer. The Bulls' last-ditch efforts at tying the game then fell short as they dropped to 3-4.
Leaving LaVine even more wistful was that Vucevic had a hot-shooting evening from behind the arc. In his 23-point, 19-rebound night, Vucevic shot 8-of-14 overall and 5-of-7 from 3-point range. LaVine had 20 points on 8-of-19 shooting, but his jump shot wasn't falling. LaVine shot 2-of-9 on 3-pointers and 0-of-2 on mid-range jumpers. He was 6-of-8 shooting near the rim.
"I don't think he saw me," Vucevic said. "It was a solid shot by him. It just didn't go in. I didn't want to yell anything because he was going into the shot. I didn't want to disturb. But it happened fast. I know he didn't miss me on purpose. He was focusing on trying to make a play. That was still a pretty good shot. It just didn't go down for us."
While the final minutes received the headlines, the Bulls all agreed they lost the game far earlier. Chicago trailed 13-5 just four minutes into the game and by as many as 19 in the second quarter. Fixing the slow starts is their focus now.
"It seems like every game," LaVine said. "We're good enough to get back into the games, but your luck is going to run out, your energy, shots, whatever it is, it'll run out eventually. We need to play the right way from the get-go. We need to figure out what it is, obviously when you're down, you're fighting for your life to get back into the game. We need to come out that way. These first games, that's been our MO. We're getting down on the first unit. The second unit usually comes in and saves our ass and plays better."
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for 670TheScore.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.
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