Lose to the West’s worst team by double digits. Beat Milwaukee in OT and for the second time this season.
I present to you: The 2022-23 Chicago Bulls.
Putting aside all the frustrating losses and inconsistency, this was a miraculous comeback worth an extremely loud and long round of applause. The resilience in this team remains pretty darn impressive. Sure, it’s frustrating that they must have their back shoved against the wall to execute at a high level, but it’s still admirable that they have been able to erase so many of these double-digit victories this season.
The Bulls were down by as much as 15 in the 4th quarter before rattling off a 27-12 run in the final 7:53 to tie the game and send it into overtime. The Bulls’ “Big 3” was responsible for every single one of those buckets except two. Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic each hit a couple of enormous shots from behind the arc, while DeRozan geared up to take complete control of the OT period.
DeRozan was in peek DeClosin’ form when he scored 10 of the Bulls’ final 13 points to push the Bulls over the edge in extra time. He also claimed the crucial steal off Giannis Antetokounmpo at the end of regulation that led to the game-tying dunk by Ayo Dosunmu.
Anyway, I’m going to reserve the rest of my thoughts for tomorrow. I need to sit down and watch a little bit more of the actual film since I was stuck in the car for basically the entirety of this game.
Shoutout to Chuck Swirsky for running a beautiful broadcast, though! And shoutout to my lovely significant other for taking the wheel so I could listen and twee my stupid tweets! That was one fun car ride!
Check out the full box score here.