Heat 116, Bulls 113: Late comeback bid falls short

The Chicago Bulls nearly stole another one.

Down as many as 14 in a game where the Bulls simply didn’t have it going. But in typical fashion, the Bulls put a surge together late in the fourth, led by a 15-point fourth quarter from Ayo Dosunmu, who also had a clutch steal of Norman Powell to give the Bulls life with 10 seconds to go.

Following some gamesmanship in the fouling game, Coby White got a good look at a game-tying three that didn’t find the bottom of the net. Bulls lose 116-113.

It’s a surprise the Bulls were able to surge the way they did. The first half was not kind to the triumvirate of Nikola Vucevic, White and Dosunmu, who struggled mightily, combining for 5-of-19 and six turnovers. That poor play seemed to affect the Bulls’ effort — or at least their body language.

But Miami seemed to play with their food, with many opportunities to put the Bulls away, but never did, opening the door for the Bulls to hang around in the second half. Shooting 39 percent as a team and turning it over 15 times makes it difficult to win, even with how well they offensive rebounded (16) and got to the free throw line (24-for-29).

Without Josh Giddey (hamstring) and Tre Jones (hamstring), ball-handling responsibilities fell to Matas Buzelis, who flashed some nice reads early on in the game. Though he only finished with four assists (to go along with 16 points), the actualized version of Buzelis certainly includes some high-level passing reads, so it’s nice to see him starting to lay the foundation for exactly that.

Giddey was out despite optimism that he would take part in the first back-to-back following Wednesday’s game in Indiana. Jalen Smith joined him and Jones on the bench after experiencing right calf tightness in the first half. Their statuses for the next two against Miami are TBD.

Tune into the CHGO Bulls postgame live: 

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Following the loss, the Bulls will head to South Beach for two more against the Heat on Saturday and Sunday. Following the postponed game on January 8, the NBA reworked the schedule and put both teams in position to play each other three times in four nights.

For the Bulls, this is a unique opportunity to get some experience treating this three-game set like a Playoff series.

“I think you always try to utilize it like that, because there’s a familiarity between both teams,” Billy Donovan said. …”I do think you have to look at it that way. Just in terms of, we haven’t been a team that’s been to the playoffs, these guys need to experience what some of that’s like.”

The chess match between games is something that doesn’t take place in the regular season — with so many games and so little time for practice, it’s challenging to truly dig into the details on any single opponent. But with three games in four nights against the same team, there will also be opportunities to adjust and make counters to what the Heat are doing — valuable learning for some of the younger players on the roster.

“Sometimes it’s hard to make a lot of adjustment, changes. Sometimes, in the playoffs, you have a game, and then there’s two days or three days. Sometimes in between your next game, where you can do a little bit more (adjusting),” Donovan said. “But I do think the familiarity and what kind of adjustments you can make and how well you can improve from game to game is important.”

— Will Gottlieb

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Bulls-Heat is so, so painful to watch. Same game, nearly every single time. Heat defense takes away all the easy stuff the Bulls live off of. The Heat always get back in transition. Their rotations, help defense and switches are nearly flawless. Just a hard team to score against without special offensive talent. And we all — or mostly — know how limited the Bulls are in that department.

I liked Buzelis getting started with some nice feeds to Smith inside. He also did strong work on the boards, which is a nice consolation on a night when his scoring was underwhelming.

Patrick Williams…I can’t. I physically cannot stand watching this guy anymore. My guess is even Donovan was sick of his ineffectiveness tonight, opting to play both Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips over Williams for stretches of the second half. And that’s even after losing Smith at halftime with a calf injury.

There’s lots of smoke around the Bulls leading to the trade deadline next Thursday. Teams interested in White, Dosunmu, and Jones, to name a few. But there’s one player who I can almost guarantee will still be a Bull after the deadline: Williams. Who’s taking that contract without unprotected draft capital attached? None of the 29 other teams in this league. Woof.

Shoutout to Kevin Huerter for knocking down his threes tonight. Up-and-down shooting season thus far. Tonight was an up night, and the Bulls really needed it on a night when clean looks were hard to come by.

…Who’s excited to watch this two more times this weekend? Bull Down!

— Matt Peck

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I’m not looking forward to two more games of this. 

Bulls stayed in the game. Definitely hung around for a while but you just felt like they would run out of gas. Even when it was an eight-point lead, it felt like it was 15.

Buzelis had a really complete game. He was impactful, rebounding and assisting, along with scoring. But man, he has to earn every point. Heat make nothing easy. 

The Heat made everything difficult. Even their players off the bench that you have never seen or heard of contributed to this game.

Play Yuki Kawamura. Please. Play. Him.

Patrick Lee Williams is an awful, AWFUL basketball player. The purest of Ass. 

— Big Dave

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