The Chicago Bulls failed to score 30 points in any quarter against the Houston Rockets in their eventual 143-107 loss on November 17. Houston, on the other hand, scored 27 points in the first quarter and then now fewer than 35 points in any of the three quarters that followed.
The Bulls have now allowed 140-plus points in back-to-back outings, sparking a reality check from two-time All-Star guard Zach LaVine.
LaVine had a team-high 15 points in the loss. But he was more concerned with the other end.
“If I don’t have any fight in you, you’re gonna get your a** kicked like that tonight. I think there’s not a lot to tell. They did what they were supposed to, and we let them,” LaVine told reporters on November 17. “We gotta be a lot tough, collectively. And then, you’re taking the ball out of bounds a lot, it’s tough to get back. But we just can’t let it snowball like it just did tonight. We’ve been playing well all year and competitive. Tonight was the total opposite.”
LaVine shot 44.4% from the floor and was 1-for-3 from beyond the arc with 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 assist, and 1 block in the game.
He was also a team-worst minus-36 on the night
“We shouldn’t let our offensive (performance) dictate our defense,” LaVine said postgame, per Chicago Sports Network’s K.C. Johnson. “We have to be feisty. We have to be tough. We have to help each other. None of that happened and you see the result.”
Zach LaVine Best for Bulls in Blowout Loss to Rockets
The Bulls allowed the Rockets to shoot 52.4% from the floor for the game. That is the fourth-highest mark by a Bulls opponent on the season. They are now 1-4 when opponents shoot over 50% from the floor.
The Bulls’ 33.6% mark from the floor was their lowest on the season.
The only other Bulls player with double-digit points in the game was reserve wing Talen Horton-Tucker, who logged more than seven of his 12 minutes played in the fourth quarter.
On the season, the Bulls’ have the 24th-ranked offensive rating and the 25th-ranked defensive rating. So their performance is not exactly out of character. Still, their lack of a defensive effort versus Houston resonated in the Bulls’ postgame locker room.
Billy Donovan: Bulls Failed to Capitalize on Rockets’ Aggressiveness
Bulls head coach Billy Donovan echoed LaVine in pointing out the team’s defensive woes while noting the other ways they failed to negate Houston’s attack.
“They took 32 shots at the rim,” Donovan told reporters postgame. “Sometimes, the shots and the paint, so to speak, can be somewhat contested and challenged, and you live with it. You can’t live with the rim. And for as much as they play there, we’re going to have to have some kind of some level of resistance, and we’re going to have to – we’re not like a shot-blocking team – and we’re gonna have to put our body in place.
“For tonight, as much the ball was coming downhill, we didn’t have one guy try to take a charge. Someone’s gotta put their body into play. They just kind of just came right through us and down, and we’re going to have to make a stance and I definitely felt from the bench … because we struggled to shoot the basketball, after a period of time, I thought it drained us. So – and this is one of those games where you have to find alternative ways to try to win. Because we certainly created a lot of really good looks, and I really liked the way we were playing.”
Donovan appreciated the Bulls’ 56 three-point attempts.
That is the most the Bulls have attempted through 14 games. However, they only connected on 25% of those looks, though, marking another season-low mark. The Bulls are 1-6 when they shoot below 38% from downtown on the campaign.
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