The Bulls played their final game before the trade deadline on Wednesday and fell 103-94 to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Here are 13 observations
1. The Cavaliers -- who entered the night 16-27 -- played without starting point guard Collin Sexton, who is dealing with hamstring soreness.
2. But the Bulls didn't play like a team eager to take advantage of that fact. Stagnant offense was the theme of the night, punctuated by 15 turnovers, off which the Cavaliers scored 11 points.
3. The quarter-by-quarter distribution of those turnovers was fairly even. The Bulls committed six cough-ups in the first, four in the second and five in the third. Though they didn't commit any in the fourth, the Cavaliers had little trouble pulling away, outscoring the Bulls 50-39 in the second half overall.
4. Zach LaVine and Lauri Markkanen led the way in the first half. LaVine scored 18 points and hit four of his six 3-point attempts, appearing well on his way to another loud showing against the Cavaliers after scoring 42 and 44 in these teams' final two matchups last season. Despite going 1-for-3 from 3-point range, Markkanen slashed his way to 13 points in the opening two quarters, including two emphatic dunks.
The two combined for 8 points in the second half. LaVine finished with five turnovers.
5. Billy Donovan exhausted another early-quarter timeout, this time 107 seconds into the third quarter. The Cavaliers held the Bulls to 17 points in that period and led 78-72 entering the fourth. By the 6:54 mark of the fourth, they stretched that advantage to double-digits and hardly looked back.
6. The Bulls did close within seven points twice inside the final four minutes. Donovan rode the old starting lineup -- Coby White, LaVine, Patrick Williams, Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. -- in crunch time as Thad Young logged just 21 minutes.
7. Size was an issue at times. The Cavaliers combined block seven shots and turn 12 offensive rebounds into 16 second-chance points. Allen (14 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks) and Larry Nance Jr. (9 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals) posted all-encompassing stat lines.
8. Darius Garland, though, was the most impressive Cavalier with Sexton out of the lineup. The second-year guard notched 22 points and 9 assists while shooting 4-for-6 from behind the arc. One of those makes came late and pushed the Cavaliers' lead from 97-90 to 100-90.
9. In the first four minutes of action, Isaac Okoro -- selected one pick after Patrick Williams in the 2020 draft -- scored 7 points on 3-for-3 shooting, nearly halfway to his career-high of 15. He went quiet in the second, but notched 5 points in the third on a pair of shifty drive-and-finishes -- one of them an and-one. All told, Okoro scored 12 points on 5-for-7 shooting.
10. Williams went scoreless until midway through the third, when the Bulls ran a play to get him a floater off a screen out of a timeout. He finished with 5 points and 5 boards on 2-for-6 shooting. Even with a loud, late-game dunk, he was translucent on the offensive end of the floor.
11. Garrett Temple was available but didn't see the floor. He's missed the last six games with an ankle sprain, which Donovan said pregame he's nearly recovered from. Expect him back in action Saturday, when he'll have had a little more ramp-up time.
12. The Bulls have been a team that's beaten up on below-.500 teams (against whom they're now 16-8) and wilted against top competition (3-16). This doesn't qualify.
13. And the loss comes at a bad time, optically speaking -- the eve of the trade deadline. That didn't look like a team energized for a playoff push. And it continues a number of team-wide downward trends; the Bulls are 3-5 since the All-Star break, with a number of disheartening losses to shorthanded squads and fourth-quarter collapses embedded.
POSTGAME REPORT
- Zach LaVine left the game for the final time with 25.8 seconds remaining and strode straight to the Bulls' locker room -- with a slight hitch in his step. Donovan said after: "There was no question he was limping, obviously the game was over, I got him off the floor immediately. I asked him a couple of times if he was OK, he said could play. I was going to take him out with maybe three or four minutes. I noticed it around maybe the six minute mark or so and he said, ‘I want to play, I’m fine, ’so I left him in there. I haven’t had a chance to talk to medical to see what actually happened yet, so I just don’t know (the severity).”
- Wendell Carter Jr.: "We can’t have losses like this. Not to say Cleveland isn’t a good team because they are. But we’ve showed we can play with some of the best of the best in this league. And I feel like from the get-go as a team we underestimated them. We just thought we could show up and play just because of their record."
Next up: The trade deadline. Thursday, 2 p.m. CT. Then: At the Spurs Saturday to tip off a brutal stretch of schedule that features 10 games (nine on the road) in 17 days, many against winning teams. Talk about insult to injury.
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