Embarrassment.
Shameful.
Rock bottom.
Pick a description and throw it at the Bulls. There’s a good chance they won’t feel it. Lifeless teams seldom do. They definitely won’t catch and shoot it, especially from three-point range.
In losing to the 9-49 Pistons on Tuesday — and doing so by 10 in a 105-95 debacle at the United Center — the Bulls shot a ghastly 2-for-29 (6.9%) from three-point range.
But that futility wasn’t what disappointed coach Billy Donovan. He was upset with the little things they didn’t do more than the poor shooting.
“Certainly 2-for-29 . . . a total outlier game in terms of that kind of shooting,” Donovan said. “But the other thing, too, and I’m hoping we can really learn from a lot of this is it wasn’t like we were down 25 because of it. I thought the loose balls, the hustle plays, the offensive rebounds into transition, we still had opportunities to overcome it.
“I always talk about the things we can control, and I do think that to a certain extent frustration [crept] in a little bit. When things aren’t going your way, you’ve got to manufacture other things to try to offset that.”
The Bulls (27-31), who are responsible for two of the Pistons’ nine wins, did none of that, and that was apparent late in the second quarter and into the second half.
It took just over three minutes into the third quarter for the Bulls to turn what should’ve been an easy night at the arena into yet another head-shaker.
After all, with just over a minute left in the first half, the Bulls were up by 10 and seemingly in complete control.
Despite a few bad possessions and a three-pointer by Cade Cunningham just before the halftime horn, the Bulls still had a five-point lead.
But these Bulls simply don’t do easy, and it showed right at the start of the third quarter.
By the time Isaiah Stewart made a three-pointer at the 8:52 mark of the third, the score was tied, and the Bulls were suddenly in for a grind-it-out fight over the remaining 21 minutes. To make matters worse, Alex Caruso injured his right hamstring in the fourth quarter and had to be helped to the bench.
He returned with just under five minutes left and the Bulls down six, but a one-legged Caruso didn’t help.
After another three-pointer and one of two free throws from Cunningham, the Pistons’ lead was up to nine.
Caruso obviously was not right, so he was pulled. And the rug was pulled from underneath the Bulls when Ausar Thompson hit a huge three-pointer with 1:58 left to give Detroit an 11-point lead.
“I didn’t like the way he was moving,” Donovan said of taking Caruso back out. “It was my decision.”
If the Bulls did have any wind left, Thompson’s three seemed to deflate them, and more ugly basketball ensued in the last two minutes.
“It’s disappointing because it’s late in the season,” guard Ayo Dosunmu said. “We understand the importance and sense of urgency we have to play with every night. I think we let one slip away. The beauty of basketball is in less than 24 hours we get to lace them back up and play a Cleveland team that beat us three times, and we have some battles with them.”
It’s a good attitude to take, but it still doesn’t erase how the Bulls lost and especially whom they lost to.
“At the end of the day, Detroit is an NBA team; they have NBA players,” Dosunmu said. “We don’t look at the records.”
Good thing.
