Outnumbered Chicago Bulls post uncompetitive effort in Miami Heat loss

What did you honestly expect?

You need two hands to count how many guys are out for the Chicago Bulls right now and you would need a lot more than two hands to total how many shots healthy guys missed in a 118 loss. -92 against miami heat.

Yes, the Heat are missing Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. But they beat a healthy one milwaukee dollars team three nights ago. They’re undoubtedly deeper than the Bulls right now (and probably significantly) even without their top two players.

At the same time, the outcome of the match, given that it wasn’t a competitive effort for most of the night, was incredibly disappointing.

It was like the Bulls needed good games from all of their starters to win this game and Zach LaVine was really the only one who did it. NBC Sports Chicago writes that KC Johnson summed it up succinctly in a tweet.

As mentioned earlier, Zach LaVine was really the only Bulls player who was good. He collected 33 points and scored seven of the 11 3-point baskets he attempted during the game (this is already his 8th 30-point game this season). As previously stated, Vuc was truly an absolute disaster hitting only three of the 15 shots he attempted and had a +/- of -29. Towards the end of the game, his frustration boiled over when he missed a shot when he essentially tackled PJ Tucker after the Heat forward grabbed the rebound. Recall that the Bulls led by LaVine / Vucevic last season didn’t really lead to a lot of W’s and that was the right version of Vuc.

The Bulls’ entire bench was made up of Alonzo McKinnie, Tony Bradley and Devon Dotson and the three players combined for a meager 16 points (some of the production was also in garbage time). They were the only three players to leave the Bulls bench until garbage time.

As a team, the Bulls shot less than 40% of the field, while the Heat shot almost 50% of the field. Duncan Robinson led all Miami scorers with 26 points while Dewayne Dedmon had a double double of 20 points and 12 rebounds. All of the Heat’s starters had at least a +16 and Miami as a team had 37 assists.

The Bulls were down 12 manageable points at the halfway point, held him there in the third quarter (outscored by three points), but let the game slip away in the fourth quarter.

The Bulls started badly and never really recovered. According to KC Johnson, the Heat started the game 9-14 from the 3-point strip in the first quarter en route to a 39-point quarterback.

The Bulls only play two games over the next seven days and those games are against the Detroit Pistons and Toronto Raptors so not the most difficult games in the world. Hopefully this will allow the Bulls to get some of their guys back. They’re still a great team, but any team, no matter how good they are, would struggle to look good with so many guys out.