The Bulls looked rusty coming out of the All-Star break. Or maybe it was just the fact that their first game back was against the NBA-best Celtics.
Either way, Thursday night at the United Center got ugly.
Despite the Bulls leading by three at the half after outscoring the Celtics by 11 in the second quarter, chants of, “Let’s go, Celtics!” had erupted by the end of the night as the Bulls were dropped 129-112.
“There are teams that have championship aspirations — clearly, they’re one of them,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said of the Celtics (44-12). “In the third quarter, when we weren’t scoring, they took their intensity up to a different level.”
After trailing by 16 in the first quarter, the Bulls (26-30) hit 5 of 7 three-point attempts (71.4%) in the second quarter after shooting just 14.3% in the first. They went to the locker room leading 62-59 after guard Coby White’s three as the shot clock expired.
“I thought we did a really nice job executing [in the second],” Donovan said. “Obviously, with the way they score, we were never able to get out in transition, and the game was slowed.”
Donovan has asked a lot of his younger players while forwards Torrey Craig and Patrick Williams have been sidelined with injuries. For a stretch in the second quarter, the Bulls had the combination of White, guard Ayo Dosunmu, forwards Julian Phillips and Dalen Terry and center Nikola Vucevic on the court, cutting the Celtics’ lead to two.
Dosunmu finished the first half with 12 points, six assists and five rebounds but scored just two points in the second half to finish with 14 points, eight assists and seven rebounds.
Vucevic led the Bulls with 22 points and 14 rebounds. White finished with 20 points, and forward DeMar DeRozan added 19. The Bulls shot 35.7% from three-point range for the game while allowing the Celtics to shoot 48.9%.
The Bulls opened the third quarter on a three-minute scoring drought and finished it 9-for-24 from the field and 28.6% from three-point range. The Celtics, meanwhile, went 7-for-11 from beyond the arc in the third and shot 63.2% from the field. By the end of the quarter, Celtics forward Jayson Tatum was hitting center Luke Kornet with an alley-oop in transition for an easy dunk. The Celtics took a 13-point lead into the fourth quarter, and things got carried away from there.
“[Their shooting in the third quarter] was a big difference,” Vucevic said. “Obviously, they almost hit as many threes as we shot.”
The Celtics were 6-for-14 on three-pointers in the fourth quarter, and when they missed, Kornet was there to play cleanup.
Tatum finished with 25 points after a slow start. Jaylen Brown added 21, and Derrick White finished with a game-high 28.
“In general, we’re not a great shooting team for threes like that,” Vucevic said. “It’s difficult. Obviously, it’s a big difference. They made some tough ones.”
The Bulls are 19th in three-point percentage, shooting 36.1% this season. The Celtics are sixth at 38%.
The schedule doesn’t get easier. The Bulls head on the road to play the Pelicans before returning for three games at home, including against the Bucks and Cavaliers. After that, they embark on a four-game trip that includes the Kings, Warriors and Clippers.
