The Bulls have had trouble with the Orlando Magic all year. There was a bad loss at the United Center in January and they barely escaped with a win on the road in February. Another critical defeat came Wednesday 105-103. It dropped the Bulls into a tie for third with Toronto, who holds the tiebreaker by virtue of being a division winner.
Derrick Rose's return, albeit with a 20-minute limit (he played 19), dominated the pregame discussion. But eventually, the nine points he scored took a backseat to the Bulls coughing up a 15-point lead in the second quarter. Although the Bulls held a more modest, yet decent lead for much of the rest of the game, they were outscored in the fourth 26-16. It culminated with a Victor Oladipo layup that was met with little resistance from the Bulls and a bad inbound pass from Mike Dunleavy.
Oladipo led all scorers with 23 points and Stacey King's label as the Magic's best player rang true as he described his game-winning basket. Nikola Vucevic finished just behind Oladipo with 22 thanks to his dominating play in the paint. Elfrid Payton controlled much of Orlando's offense with 17 points, nine rebounds and nine assists. Evan Fournier was inspirational off the bench with 11.
Jimmy Butler led the completely healthy Bulls with 19 points and six assists. 15 points apiece came from Pau Gasol, Taj Gibson and Nikola Mirotic. Aaron Brooks scored 13 and Joakim Noah grabbed 11 rebounds. That would be a recipe for success on most nights, but instead, they let the pesky Magic split the season series at two apiece.
During the radio broadcast, Chuck Swirsky wasn't shy about pointing out a lack of urgency for the Bulls. It's a recurring theme he's had to repeat both on the air and in his mind throughout the season. The Magic just happen to be the bad team that has made the Bulls pay more. And boy, that feeling is not good when it comes.
Having no urgency is an issue that has been recounted on this blog more than it should be. For a team that's supposed to do well in the playoffs when completely healthy, that's pretty disturbing. How many times this season have we seen double-digit leads in losses, especially to teams the Bulls should run over? Still other games have had these collapses, but the Bulls somehow won anyway.
If the Bulls aren't going for the kill when they have the chance now, how can we expect them to hold leads in the playoffs? It's going to be a short stay when a quality opponent makes them pay for settling on a certain margin. Then again, we've seen them play with the heart of a champion most of the time when playing with a playoff team. It's against the bad teams when they seem to struggle more, but that can still say a lot about them.
Maybe this is just reading too much into the regular season and everything will be fine come playoff time. Still, losses like this aren't going to make many teams respect them. They've shown a equal amount of disrespect to teams below their talent level. They might have even forgotten that every NBA player has made it to the league for a reason. The collective talent assembled anywhere makes any team dangerous, including against other NBA teams.
Nick Friedell tweeted about "a very sad and dejected Bulls locker room" afterward. If that's the case, why don't they do something about it so there's more happiness around? The good news is there's still time to let everyone know they can play well no matter who steps on the floor with them. While they certainly have proven they can play good teams well, doing that against inferior clubs too can show how tough you are competitively, not just from a talent level.
The Bulls remain in Florida as they right back at it Thursday against the Miami Heat. A national TV audience can watch the Bulls deal a serious blow to the playoff hopes of Dwyane Wade's club. Maybe Wade's mere presence will give them that extra inspiration needed to put that South Beach bunch away. One can never tell when a team goes up and down so frequently.
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