Following one of the biggest PR disasters since the Reggie Rose fiasco in 2013, the Chicago Bulls laid an egg at home against the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference.
The Dwyane Wade-less Miami Heat, winners of six straight and sitting at a paltry 17-30 this season after a 100-88 victory over the Chicago Bulls, are a team that’s starting somebody named Rodney McGruder.
The Bulls, now 23-25 after a loss on Friday night to the Heat, who have 100 percent more Dwyane Wade than the Miami Heat as of this writing, usually start that aforementioned Hall of Famer at the shooting guard slot and three-time All-Star Jimmy Butler at the small forward position.
But, not in this contest.
You might have heard about a little locker room issue stemming from an impressive late-game home collapse against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday, when the Bulls (who had led wire-to-wire), went ice-cold and let their counterparts go on a 19-2 run in the final three minutes of the contest to steal a road win from the jaws of a much-needed home victory.
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Well, after Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade (correctly) called out their crappy teammates for playing crappily during post-game interviews, and Rajon Rondo retaliated with a petulant Instagram post (a post created with not a little input from Kevin Garnett), the Bulls fined all three players for speaking out.
That preceded Fred Hoiberg benching Wade and Butler to start things out on Friday in favor of rookie Paul Zipser and 36.2 percent three-point “ace” (that’s a few decimal points higher than the league average) Doug McDermott.
Though that experiment was actually fine through the game’s first three quarters (Chicago held a 77-67 lead heading into the final period, thanks to balanced scoring from Taj Gibson, Zipser, Wade and… Rondo), things turned sour for good when the game started to actually matter.
Miami pumped up the jams in a hurry, outscoring the Bulls to the tune of a 23-9 run in the first 4:43 of the quarter! It was never close after that, and Miami, whose best player is either Dion Waiters or an older Goran Dragic, wound up sealing the deal with a 100-88 victory over the Bulls, whose best player went 1-of-13 (not a type) from the field in 33 sulking minutes.
This game was an embarrassment for all non-Paul Zipser parties involved, and should serve to put Fred Hoiberg on notice: somebody is going to have to be held accountable for this quickly-unraveling season.
Next: Butler, Wade, Rondo, Hoiberg and ... Gar Forman(?) all speak after Friday's shootaround
And it’s not going to be Gar Forman.
Hey, we hear Iowa’s really nice this time of year.