Bulls haven’t crossed over into NBA’s elite, and it hurts

CLEVELAND — It wasn’t exactly Josh Giddey’s finest moment.

“It’s not a good highlight reel to be on,” the Bulls guard joked afterward.

With just over six minutes left in the third quarter and the Cavaliers making a push, Giddey found himself locked onto De’Andre Hunter. The bouncy 6-foot-7 forward dribbled between his legs several times before making a killer crossover from left to right and heading to the rim for a nasty two-handed slam.

Giddey?

He was left crumbled to the ground like an awkward defender found on an “And1 Mixtape” from the early 2000s.

“I went to plant, and I was kind of on my tippy-toes, so it’s kind of a weak point of your ankle,” Giddey said of the ankle-breaking moment. “As he made a crossover I was up on my tippy-toe and I tried to change direction, my ankle rolled a little bit. Good move by him.”

Not the only good moves made by Cleveland in Saturday’s six-point Bulls loss. Cleveland overcame a 19-point deficit by picking up the Bulls full-court and disrupting the run-and-gun offense Billy Donovan’s crew relies on, and it was the second straight game — both losses == in which the opposing team outrebounded the Bulls in the final quarter.

A blueprint that the opposition can use to solve the Bulls? Maybe, but either way it has to be cleaned up sooner than later.

“I think they started picking up full-court, which kind of took our pace away a little bit,” Giddey said. “We didn’t get to our spacing quick enough. We’re running offense with 13, 14 seconds left on the (24-second shot) clock, which is hard to do. We got into our offense late.

“You don’t completely turn the page. You address what we did wrong and as I said the fourth quarter execution wasn’t where it needed to be. You give credit to Cleveland, Milwaukee, but both games we put ourselves into position to win. Just the last few minutes of the night we didn’t get it done.”

Which once again leads to the bigger issue of this roster. One that won’t be going away or fixed anytime soon. Sure, they have looked great against younger players on the rise like a Cade Cunningham with Detroit and Orlando’s Paolo Banchero, but the NBA’s truly elite?

The Bulls may have depth and a very good team, but they don’t have the star power some franchise’s can flex, and it’s showing up late in games.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell were reminders of that. Even the come-from-behind win over Philadelphia last week saw Tyrese Maxey score 39. The Bulls were able to control Maxey in the final quarter, however. That was not the case with Antetokounmpo and Mitchell, who combined for 32 points in the final stanza.

“When Giannis gets the ball, teams are running at him to get the ball out of his hands,” Donovan said. “Teams aren’t doing that to us. They’re not going to run just to get the ball out of a certain guy’s hands. We’re going to have to create on our own that kind of help.”

Because it’s not going away unless the Bulls front office has a really big surprise come trade deadline time.

“It’s kind of cost us the last two (games) and we’ve got to figure it out,” Giddey said. “We don’t have that kind of go-to guy where we’re throwing him the ball and letting him go iso (isolation). We have to do it collectively.”

The Bulls host the Spurs on Monday night, that means the unicorn that is Victor Wembanyama is in town – all 7-5 of him.

“Same thing is coming,” Giddey added, “and we’ve got to be ready.”