While my girlfriend and I were driving to Friday's game against the Indiana Pacers, Marc Stein of ESPN reported that Fred Hoiberg is on the hot seat and only the guaranteed money on his five-year, $25 million contract is keeping the Bulls from making a change. After the game, Hoiberg downplayed the talk, though that's not going to keep it from subsiding. It will just continue after the Bulls lost, 111-101.
The Pacers threatened to blow it open early after making their first seven field-goal attempts. But Indiana missed a bunch of layups and had trouble handling the ball, allowing the Bulls to keep pace and even chip away at the lead. This continued until the game was tied at 95 midway through the fourth quarter and again at 97 two minutes later. But the Bulls couldn't find that one basket to give them the lead and went cold, allowing the Pacers to end the game on a 14-4 run.
Paul George showed off his value with a game-high 32 points, 11 during the aforementioned game-ending run, on 10-of-20 shooting from the field and making all nine of his free throws. Jeff Teague, who gave the Bulls plenty of fits in Atlanta before he was traded this summer, did it again by recording a career-high 17 assists. The rest of the Pacers' starting frontcourt benefited as Thaddeus Young scored 17 and Myles Turner had 15. Glen Robinson III also reached double figures with 12 points and completed the double-double with 10 rebounds.
Not surprising for the Bulls was Jimmy Butler leading them with 25 points and Dwyane Wade not far behind with 20. Surprising was Crisitano Felicio's first career double-double (12 points, 12 rebounds), which will only make his strongest supporters scream even louder for him to play more meaningful minutes, though foul trouble in the first half kept him from playing longer during that time. Michael Carter-Williams earned the right to start the second half over Rajon Rondo, who was benched the final 24 minutes, and made the most of his increased playing time with 12 points and eight boards. Doug McDermott and Taj Gibson each scored 10.
You gotta give the Bulls credit for not rolling over when they got down in a hurry. That desire not to be out of games has kept this frustrating season more entertaining than it has any right to be. But their sloppy play out of the gate and running numerous offensive sets in crunch time that just didn't work did them in. This was a prime example of how streaky, both good and bad, these Bulls can be.
The Bulls are 16-17 and deserve every bit to be under .500. The offense isn't that great and the defense tends to get beaten at the worst times. They give themselves plenty of chances and are often successful at them, but other than the two wins earlier this week, it doesn't happen much in the clutch. It's up to Hoiberg and his staff to get the players from being on the precipice of needed wins to getting over that hump required to win.
The focus now shifts to Saturday's New Year's Eve date with the Milwaukee Bucks. At the very least, the Bulls can end 2016 at exactly .500, which would be fitting for this group. But the Bucks blew them out on both ends of a home-and-home earlier this month and playing the back end of a back-to-back won't make it any easier against this younger, more athletic opponent. Sound familiar, GarPax?
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