Heat dialed up in 4th
Bulls fade down stretch, making it their 3rd loss in last 4 games
For weeks, coach Billy Donovan has emphasized that the Bulls need to win games by winning third quarters.
The Bulls won the third quarter Saturday night against the Miami Heat, using a 28-23 run to take their first lead of the night and redefine the rhythm of the game. But that effort wasn’t enough to hold off the Heat, who won 107-104 in a back-and-forth battle for the second spot in the Eastern Conference.
DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso took over the game coming out of the locker room to spur the Bulls’ second-half comeback. In a 28-point night, DeRozan reignited his scoring touch in the third quarter — breaking away for a fast-break dunk, forcing his way to the foul line and going 6-for-7 from the field.
Caruso knocked down a 3-pointer to cut the Bulls’ deficit to 67-66 with 3 minutes, 43 seconds left in third, then hit a pair of free throws to give the Bulls the lead a minute later. The guard’s 22 points and fullcourt passing helped the Bulls stay alive as the game loosened up from end to end.
Despite this surge, the Heat suffocated the Bulls slowly on both ends of the court by forcing mistakes. The Bulls’ 22 turnovers highlighted a slapdash night as top stars largely struggled to score against the Heat.
Zach LaVine went 4-from10 from 3-point range and finished with 16 points. Nikola Vučević scored only seven points in his third game back from a COVID19 absence. Lonzo Ball went 3-for-11 from 3-point range and scored 11 points.
The Heat’s lack of turnovers posed a challenge to the Bulls offense, which has averaged 20.7 points in transition this season. Turnovers don’t just fuel the Bulls’ scoring; the transition game is the central spark to the team’s energy, allowing the
Bulls to set the tone on their home court and run opponents ragged.
The Heat only coughed up five turnovers in the first half, forcing the Bulls to play an uncomfortable amount of half-court offense.
Meanwhile, the Bulls committed 15 turnovers in the first half. Most of those were forced, but the Bulls also lacked sharpness at the start of their second of backto-back games of the week.
The Heat forced sloppiness by blitzing DeRozan and LaVine, pressing the pair into isolation play. Physical challenges on cutting players contributed to Bulls turnovers as players struggled to maneuver the ball through the packed paint. The team slipped in and out of a full-court press, which further challenged the Bulls’ ball-handling abilities.
A cold start from 3-point range didn’t help the Bulls’ case. They went 5-for-17 from behind the arc in the first half and shot only 28.2% from long range on the night.
Despite an off-kilter start, the Bulls never let the Heat pull ahead by more than a handful of points. The Bulls snapped out of their firsthalf slump through feverish ball movement.
Caruso began flashing to the top of the paint to offer an outlet where he could pivot and quickly dump the ball off to teammates set up in the corner or slashing toward the rim.
This small adjustment helped to open up the Bulls’ half-court game plan, allowing the team whip the ball around the arc to find open players.
But half-court execution continued to plague the Bulls through the final whistle.
The emotions of the night matched the stakes of two Eastern Conference powerhouses taking their best swings at one another.
Vučević earned a technical foul for tossing his mouth guard after disagreeing with a referee in the third quarter. Heat center Dewayne
Dedmon was ejected for kicking a chair pad into the stands after he fouled Derrick Jones Jr. in the fourth quarter.
The game marked the first time DeRozan and Kyle Lowry played on an NBA court together on different teams. DeRozan and Lowry developed a deep friendship during their years together with the Toronto Raptors, and the pair hugged and cut up on the court before the game.
Guard Jimmy Butler also returned to Chicago on Saturday in the midst of one of the best runs of his career.
His offensive statistics through the first quarter of the season — 23.9 points and 5.3 assists per game — match the career-high performance of his final year with the Bulls. Butler faded for large swaths of Saturday’s game, but the guard finished with 18 points.
Gabe Vincent scored 20 points off the bench to lead the Heat, and Lowry added 19.