NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Bulls understood the assignment.
Unlike what we saw against Toronto in the first Play-In Tournament game last season, the Bulls were the ones to get out to an early lead. DeMar DeRozan was completely in his bag from the opening tip-off, carving up this 27th-ranked Hawks defense from all three levels. Even more important, he used his threat to score to consistently set up his teammates in the first half. He’d finish the first two frames with 18 points and 5 assists on 8-12 shooting.
As DeRozan drew all the attention, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu also took full advantage. Both players were crucial in helping enforce a downhill mentality. In a lot of ways, the early portion of this game felt like the Bulls were going back to their roots – if you can call it that? All the Bulls talked about heading into this season was an offense centered around penetrating the paint and kicking out to open shooters. We saw it a little in the preseason and over the first couple of weeks, but it became far too inconsistent.
Meanwhile, the Hawks started their night shooting just 1-9 from downtown in the first quarter. Their inefficient performance allowed Chicago to run up the score, so much so that Trae Young’s team entered the second quarter down a staggering 40-22. The 40 points marked the single-most by the Bulls in the first half this season.
As impressed as I was with Chicago’s hot start, I’ve watched enough of this team not to get my hopes up. The Hawks would rattle off a 14-0 run to quickly cut the game back to just a couple of possessions. The Bulls also lost Alex Caruso after Andre Drummond collided with him at mid-court. The team’s best defensive player would head to the locker room almost immediately. To be clear, he was able to check back into the game briefly but only ended up clocking 17 minutes on the night. His availability for Friday is now in question.
The Hawks used their resurgent second quarter to cut things just a 6-point game at halftime. Factoring in the Caruso injury, my head was starting to tell me that this would be another missed opportunity for the Bulls. Fortunately, my gut was telling me otherwise.
The electricity inside the United Center radiated off my television screen and stood up my hair. The crowd was going ballistic, and the players looked as locked in as we’ve seen them all season, especially one man in particular.
DeMar DeRozan must have passed the torch to Coby White in the tunnel. The Chicago Bulls’ young guard completely took over the game in the second half and refused to let the Atlanta Hawks make a serious run. He was repeatedly exposing their porous perimeter defense with flashy ball-handling and beautiful finishes. The sequence that felt like it almost won the Bulls the game came at the end of the third quarter when White scored or assisted on three straight possessions. If you weren’t watching, I did a separate post to share those clips here. It’s worth a watch, I promise.
White ended up finishing the night with a career-high 42 points. Technically, that number is going to show up in the NBA record books as White’s career-high because the league doesn’t recognize Play-In stats (which is freakin’ absurd), but the real ones know! He also added 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals.
If there are really two numbers that underscore how impressive this White before was, however, it’s his ZERO turnovers and only THREE 3-point makes. In other words, he didn’t make mistakes and didn’t merely get hot behind the arc. He sliced and diced his way to the rim repeatedly, and it served as a perfect representation of how much his game has grown.
Look, I’ve been vocal about the fact that part of me wanted the Bulls season to end. This front office doesn’t need any more excuses to keep this train of mediocrity chugging along. But if they’re going to play postseason basketball, this is precisely the way we should all want to see it done. White and Dosunmu played signifcant roles in sealing this victory on a national stage under a bright spotlight. This is the type of win that will only do them good moving forward, and I can’t help but be excited about that.
Check out the full box score here.
