Fred Hoiberg rolls with bench late, Bulls beat Memphis 111-110

In an overall sloppy game between two tanking teams, the Bulls’ bench took home a very fun victory against the Grizzlies.

Eight days ago, the Bulls defeated the Grizzlies in Chicago, but the game previewed tonight’s; a sloppy game in the heat of college basketball’s March Madness season. However, tonight’s finish showed some of the same fun as the late-game action happening at the college level.

Coming into play, both teams lacked arguably their best players; Memphis is without Mike Conley for the remainder of the season, while Chicago lacked Lauri Markkanen, missing his second consecutive game with back spasms.

The first half of action showed two teams in the heat of their respective tanks playing very close basketball. In Memphis, the crowd appeared scarce for the pairing between the 23-44 Bulls and the 18-49 Grizzlies.

Chicago again rolled with a young line-up, who struggled against some of Memphis’s starting line-up. Jarell Martin, Marc Gasol, and Tyreke Evans each scored 11 points in the first half.

Meanwhile, among Chicago’s minimal arsenal of veterans, Robin Lopez hit just the 4th three-pointer of his career. Quite frankly, it was a fun moment in a dreadful portion of this rebuild. He played 12 minutes in the game, scoring 5 points.

Rookie Dillon Brooks again proved himself a force against the Bulls. He scored 29 points in Memphis’s loss to the Bulls earlier in the month, already scoring 13 on 4-of-8 shooting at halftime. He’d finish with just 15 points, struggling for success in the second half.

The first half continued what’s been a turbulent run for Zach LaVine. While he scored 10 points on 2-of-6 shooting by the halftime break, he picked up 4 fouls in the first 24 minutes. He’d finish with 20 points, hitting 10-of-10 from the free throw line, but took some very poor, contested shots.

At the halftime whistle, Chicago and Memphis headed to the locker room knotted at 52-52.

Then, when action resumed in the second, both teams displayed more of the same style of play, for the large part. Unfortunately for the fans, that meant some very sloppy basketball.

Inconsistent defense, errant passings, and poor shot selection made the game hard to watch for basketball lovers. At the end of the game, Chicago finished with 13 turnovers, Memphis with 14 turnovers of their own.

While tonight’s play was ugly overall, play in the last few minutes of the fourth was very exciting.

For Bulls fans, tonight’s fourth quarter contained something incredibly amusing for a rebuild. Fred Hoiberg rolled with Cam Payne, Antonio Blakeney, Paul Zipser, Noah Vonleh, and Cristiano Felico. This bunch is better known as Chicago’s DNP choices earlier this season.

Tonight, they chased Memphis down to the wire on the road.

The final few moments featured defenses in full collapses. Neither team maintained an edge, due to consistent, listless defensive runs of players being left wide-open.

Now, the performance of Cam Payne (since his February 22nd) return has been genuinely impressive. Tonight, he scored 8 points with 5 assists and 3 rebounds. Payne found himself in rhythm, making nice passes and committing no turnovers.

In a twist, Antonio Blakeney played hero in the Chicago victory. The G-League wonder-rookie fired an off-balanced three with 1.8 seconds remaining, missing, but getting fouled. He hit the first, then missed the second; the bench couldn’t help but smile, watching the rookie’s nerves.

Memphis nearly converted a tip shot at the buzzer, actually converting the take, but not before time expired. Chicago sealed a 111-110 victory on the road, rolling with the bench.

While some will certainly argue tonight’s win wasn’t great for the rebuild in the record column, it’s hard to discredit Hoiberg for rolling with the bench. They played inspired, hopefully capturing some overall future confidence.

Either way, the Bulls fly home winners. Plus, they won’t suffer like Memphis, who’ve now lost 19 games in-a-row.