Bulls stumble in key matchup against Magic, letting a tough one slip away

ORLANDO, Fla. — The trade deadline and all the hype surrounding it was finally in the rearview mirror for the Bulls.

The mindset Saturday was to look forward, which was pretty easy for coach Billy Donovan.

‘‘For me, I wouldn’t necessarily use the word ‘relief,’ ’’ Donovan said of life after the deadline. ‘‘I’ve always taken the approach, ‘This is our team.’ Now, if it changes, then you have to adjust.

‘‘I thought that was always a good approach for me. I think when you start speculating, you lose sight of the group that you have in front of you because those decisions are not decisions you necessarily have control over. For me, it wasn’t like the trade deadline passed, and I was like, ‘Oh, wow, what a relief this was.’ ’’

The problem for Donovan was that he wouldn’t find relief in the game against the Magic, either.

Despite building an 11-point lead in the third quarter, the Bulls (25-28) fell apart in the fourth and in overtime, losing 114-108 to team a spot ahead of them in the Eastern Conference standings.

‘‘Yeah, we’re just trying to get every single win we can get,’’ said forward DeMar DeRozan, who led the Bulls with 28 points. ‘‘We’re desperate, trying to get every win. We’re right there, trying to string every game we can together.

‘‘You don’t want to drop games like this. There’s nothing we can do about it now. Get ready for Atlanta [on Monday], beat Atlanta, [then] get on to the next one.”

It will be a crucial one, considering the Hawks trail the Bulls by one game in the battle for the No. 9 spot in the conference.

With the Bulls trailing by three with less than two minutes left in regulation, DeRozan had a layup blocked by Goga Bitadze. Franz Wagner then made two free throws to boost the Magic’s lead to five.

The Bulls, however, rallied to force overtime on a nasty one-handed slam by Ayo Dosunmu and a three-point play by DeRozan.

The start of overtime is when the Magic really took over, starting with a basket by Wagner (36 points) and a dunk by Bitadze.

The Bulls spent the rest of overtime playing catch-up, and when DeRozan missed an easy dunk with 8.1 seconds left, that was it.

‘‘I thought we had some decent looks,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘Quite honestly, in that overtime, we were running on fumes a little bit.’’

That was obvious. The Bulls were outscored 13-7 in the extra period, with eight of the Magic’s points coming from the paint.

It also didn’t help that the Bulls had trouble generating offense in overtime, shooting 3-for-12 from the field.

‘‘I thought Coby [White] had some good looks late but didn’t seem to have the legs there,’’ Donovan said.

Even if that was the case for White, who shot 1-for-4 in overtime, he wasn’t about to make that an excuse.

‘‘We competed; we played hard,’’ White said. ‘‘We’ve got two more games on this road trip, so we’ve got to finish strong.’’

Might some help be on the way in the buyout market?

‘‘I think they’re definitely exploring that,’’ Donovan said of the front office. ‘‘I think in those buyout markets, my guess would be that there would be conversations by [executive vice president of basketball operations] Arturas [Karnisovas] and [general manager] Marc [Eversley] with representation of those players of what they’re thinking.’’