The Chicago Bulls hosted the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday night. Strangely, both teams are in the playoff spot with just about six weeks of the regular season to go. Here’s how the action played out for Chicago, while they chased that sixth seed in the Eastern Conference.
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The Bulls continued the Bobby Portis experiment in this game, opting to start him over Nikola Mirotic. The rest of the starting lineup also remained the same.
Chicago started it the right way, getting a turnover, Jerian Grant connecting on a transition 3-pointer, a defensive rebound, and then it was back to normal. The nightly practice of running the first offensive set through Robin Lopez was on. Some oddities continued as Portis did good defense for a change. The game was even through the early going.
Despite hearing that Cameron Payne would get more minutes in this game, it was Rajon Rondo who was the first sub into the game for Chicago. In fact, Fred Hoiberg didn’t stray from his lineup substitution patterns at all. Robin Lopez and Jimmy Butler played the entire first quarter. Denzel Valentine and Nikola Mirotic were the other subs into the rotation.
It was 25-22, Bulls ahead to end the first. There were several ties and a bunch of lead changes in a tight game.
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Payne got into the game to start the second quarter, but played alongside Rondo, not as the primary point. Cristiano Felicio also got in on the fun, finally. The game was close, but Chicago pushed their lead to five, with eight minutes left in the half. Rondo led the way with 10 points, four rebounds and an assist in his first nine minutes of play.
The Bulls started to pull away a little, getting solid play from their bench. Felicio was doing great things, pulling in his alley-oop, a nightly occurrence, early on. Then he and Valentine linked up in a nice screen-and-roll situation that resulted in a bucket. A Denver run of 6-0 slowed the Chicago machine, keeping the game close as halftime inched closer. And then, they took the lead, erasing a nine-point lead that the Bulls had working in their favor mid-way through the second quarter.
Rondo didn’t add to his tally, but was tied for the Chicago lead at halftime for points. Dwyane Wade also had 10. Felicio had nine points on 4-for-4 shooting. The Bulls killed the Nuggets on the glass, it was pretty even for total rebounds, but Chicago led 10-1 in offensive rebounds.
Both team went off, scoring 34 points each in the second quarter. It was 59-56, Chicago’s lead at the half.
The Bulls ran out the same group to start the second half that opened the game and Portis got it rolling. He had a 3-pointer and a nice baseline pull-up jumper early on as part of a 7-2 run for Chicago to give them a little separation again.
Denver was shooting better than the Bulls, over 50 percent for the game halfway through the third quarter, but Chicago’s massive offensive rebound advantage helped them put up 13 more shots by that point in the contest. The Nuggets were losing the game based on volume of shooting inequality created by the Bulls dominance on the offensive glass.
The lead was constantly in flux, Denver keeping it close thanks to Gary Harris. Harris, drafted by the Bulls and traded with Jusuf Nurkic on draft night so Chicago could acquire Doug McDermott, knocked down a 3-pointer to make it a one-point lead for the Bulls halfway through the third. He had 13 points at that time, tied for the lead on his team.
As the third quarter started to wind down, Rondo started heating up. He knocked down a corner 3 and a long two en route to setting a new season high in points scored. However, the Nuggets knocked down a couple of 3-pointers and free throws and found themselves with a six-point lead with a little over a minute left in the third.
The quarter ended with an 18-8 run by Denver. That run proved to be the different between the two teams in the quarter. The Nuggets outscored Chicago by 11 points in the third, led 91-83 heading into the fourth quarter. Butler shot 3-for-13 through the first three quarters.
After some very solid outings, Mirotic showed a little of his bad side. He picked up three fouls in less than three minutes of game play. One foul at the end of the third resulted in two made free throws, the other two fouls were committed less than 50 seconds into the fourth and one resulted in two free throws.
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After a Gallinari 3-pointer, Denver stretched their lead to 13 points. This was after the Bulls had a lead of eight points earlier in the third. That’s a big swing in a short amount of time. The Nuggets shot the lights out while Chicago shot like the lights were out.
It was all over early. From mid-third to mid-fourth, Denver scored 44 points and shot 8-for-10 from 3-point range and pushed their lead to 21 points, 110-89.
Payne started 0-for-7 to start the game before knocking down a 3-pointer and then Anthony Morrow made his Bulls debut, as did Joffrey Lauvergne. Welcome to the team, fellas. Get used to this.
It ended up being an ugly affair, which was surprising because Chicago looked like they were going to be winners for more than half of the night. It wasn’t until mid-way through the third that the pain set in.
Bulls fall to .500 again, Denver looks mighty scary. Jokic gets a triple-double for the Nuggets.