Bulls-Pistons: Takeaways From Another Glorious Defeat

We did it again, folks! After disconcerting late victories over the Memphis Grizzlies and Atlanta Hawks recently, Chicago has pieced together a respectable five-game losing streak.

In the creatively-named Little Caesar’s Arena, your visiting Bulls laid an egg to Blake Griffin and the Detroit Pistons. Detroit blew out Chicago, 117-95.

The Pistons are still mathematically alive in the playoff race. They are five and a half games behind the Milwaukee Bucks for the eighth seed. Tonight’s win moved their season record to 33-40. With Chicago’s defeat, they have fallen to 24-49 on the season. The Orlando Magic won last night on the strength of an Aaron Gordon near-triple-double. He had 29 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists, and must be totally desperate to play on a decent team soon. Their record is now 22-51.

The Brooklyn Nets sit just one game behind the Bulls at 23-51. We’re facing off against Orlando this coming Friday, and we have two games coming up against Brooklyn. We can still finish with a worse record than these squads! Really, a lot of the tanking teams in the league feel somewhat within reach.

Chicago sat Lauri Markkanen, Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn and Antonio Blakeney last night. Blakeney is done for the season, LaVine will probably join him soon. Dunn’s swollen toe remains problematic as well. Thanks to K.C. Johnson for all these scoops. If Chicago continues to sit The Finnisher and Dunn with potentially exaggerated injuries, we could lose every remaining game.

Only the Memphis Grizzlies and Phoenix Suns, sitting pretty at 19-54 and 19-55 respectively, feel uncatchable. After just nine more pathetic bouts, the Chicago Bulls could be sitting pretty with a top-three draft pick. More realistically, though, we have a decent shot at one of the five worst records in the league.

Here are your three takeaways.

Anthony Tolliver had a career night. Facing a paltry and depleted Bulls defense, the Pistons’ bench forward knocked down six of 12 three-point attempts. The 6’8″ 32 year-old Creighton product also scored a season-high 25 points and pulled down six rebounds. He also had one block and one assist.

Tolliver absolutely abused his Bulls defenders, primarily Bobby Portis. Portis sagged way off Tolliver in favor of manning the paint for rebounds. Tolliver broke loose for several corner triples thanks to BP’s negligence. Tolliver also scrambled around screens until Paul Zipser was left hopelessly out of position.

Blake Griffin shot 40% on triples. I have an outstanding gentleman’s wager going with my friend Chris about the fate of Blake’s three-point shooting. From the start of the season, I pegged Blake to connect on 34.1% or more his three-point looks. Chris took the under. Blake made two of his five looks from deep last night.

This is just an anecdotal note, but this game was wholly irrelevant anyway. So I just wanted to mention this. Blake is shooting 34.2% from deep this season. I need more nights like last night from him.

Despite his sweet shooting, Blake netted just 10 points and nine boards and was featured fairly minimally. Watching his transition from consistent superstar to solid starter has been strange. His All-Star front court mate Andre Drummond had by far the more impressive night.

Drummond had 15 points on just six-of-nine field goal shooting. He also logged 20 rebounds and four blocks. Current Pistons coach (and former Dwight Howard-era Magic coach) Stan Van Gundy must have relished that stat line. Howard’s Charlotte Hornets have continued to show some fight lately. They sport a 33-41 record. Barring a Bucks collapse, Charlotte will be doomed to battle Detroit for ninth-seed status. I wonder how much Stan Van and Dwight regret this happening.

Starting Bulls point guard Cameron Payne continues to be a thing. Life can be cruel sometimes. Payne had another game that could generously be called “competent” on paper. He had 10 points on four-of-10 field goal shooting, plus four boards and three dimes.

Jerian Grant, the Bulls’ best healthy point guard, also had 10 points on four-of-10 shooting. Grant, though, notched 10 assists. Ryan Arcidiacono, the Bulls’ other point guard, took mop-up duty for the night, playing 10 minutes when the game was already out of hand. Arcidiacono registered three points, a steal, and no defense during his tenure.