After solid second quarter, Bulls fall apart against Bucks

There were moments Monday night, specifically in the second quarter.

The Bulls outscored the “it’’ team in the Eastern Conference 32-24, rookie Coby White had the United Center crowd on its feet and even the formerly inconsistent Lauri Markkanen was stringing together another solid performance.

But that’s the problem with the Bulls through 34 games — they’re only moments.

A team such as the Bucks (30-5) comes into town on a crusade to earn the best record in the conference, while the Bulls can only pat themselves on the back for moments.

So the second quarter gave Bulls coach Jim Boylen some good film-room chatter, but by the end, all that really mattered was a 123-102 final score, yet another loss in the third year of this sputtering rebuild.

“We’ve got to respond better in situations,’’ Boylen said of a poor second half. “We have layups and dunks, open threes. I thought we hung our head a little bit. We haven’t done that in a while. We’ve played through those situations, and [Monday] we didn’t.’’

The Bulls did a solid job slowing down reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo — holding him 7.5 points below his average — but they seemed to forget the other four players on the floor with Antetokounmpo at times.

The Bucks, on the other hand, knew exactly who was on the floor for the Bulls (13-21) and took full advantage to pull away in the third quarter.

With the home team only down by three at the half, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer made the key defensive adjustment, sagging off Kris Dunn and daring the erratic-shooting point guard to launch it from long distance. Meanwhile, the Bucks crammed the paint, also testing Dunn’s decision-making.

It seemed to rattle Dunn, and the Bulls’ offense completely bogged down.

The Bucks didn’t have that problem, going on a 17-4 run to start the second half. Dunn was eventually pulled for Ryan Arcidiacono, but the hole was too deep to climb out of.

“We’ve had this situation before,’’ Boylen said. “Do you put [Dunn] off the ball? We need him defensively; we need his playmaking; we need his heart on our team. He’s a big part of our team. Do you put him off the ball and they shrink off him or do you put him on the ball and hope he can make some plays and they guard him? That’s the dilemma with that situation.

“They executed their game plan, and we struggled to score. We’ll look at it, work on it and grow with it.’’

As for Antetokounmpo, he still had 23 points even though the Bulls threw everything at him, including high-energy rookie Daniel Gafford.

“At first when I started trying to figure out his game, for a guy with his build, his body size, length, all that, it was kind of surprising,’’ Gafford said. “He’s doing things like a guard, and people are saying that when he gets a jump shot, it’s going to be real scary, stuff like that.

“Once I got to actually play against him, seeing it firsthand, it’s not really surprising anymore. He works on his craft every day, so it’s not surprising that he does what he does.’’

It’s also not surprising that the Bulls do what they do, especially against teams with winning records.

More bad news could be on the way. Their next three games are against the Jazz, Celtics and Mavericks.