There was Jack, basically known for his reign of terror against giants. David slinging against your Biblical goliath. There was Buster Douglas, the 1980 US Olympic hockey team and the tortoise, of course. The Bulls haven’t won any races yet, but they certainly are getting the hang of slaying the giants.
And yet another one crashed Wednesday in the United Center with an historic Bulls comeback, trailing by 15 points in the fourth quarter and by 10 with 2:18 left before chopping down the mighty Milwaukee Bucks in a 119-113 overtime victory.
For the second time this season over East co-favorite Milwaukee as the 15-19 Bulls, improbably, are 5-1 against the top three teams in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics, Nets and Bucks. With a pair of wins also over last season’s East wins leader, the Miami Heat.
“It’s kind of like when you’re running fast, you start running faster if a dog starts chasing you, right? said DeMar DeRozan. “That’s kind of like that type of feeling, if that makes sense.”
Well, a little if you think about it. And if DeMar says it, the way he’s playing then it’s so.
Because if you thought about this one with the Bucks dominating the Bulls 22-8 on offense rebounds, 23-9 on second chance points and 61-53 on the boards with Giannis Antetokounmpo putting up 45 points, 22 rebounds and seven assists, you’d guess the Bulls got run down and bitten pretty badly.
It didn’t happen because of—running out of adjectives for this—yet another incomparable DeRozan game better than even the others when they were hard to believe how much better they were than previously.
And it didn’t even have everything to do with DeRozan’s 42 points, 10 rebounds and five assists that included 10 of the 13 overtime points and an assist on the other, a three pointer from Nikola Vučević.
C’mon, I’ve just got to. It was Jordanesque; sorry, but it was.
Also because of DeRozan’s two steals and two blocks, and two of the most significant defensive plays of the game that even enabled to get the Bulls to overtime and, we assume, the bus going back to Milwaukee for the visitors with a symbolic buck across the hood. Talk about getting one right between the eyes. Though it was fortunate for the Bulls that the Bucks apparently brought with them faulty sights for nine for 44 on threes that left courtside fans clamoring for helmets from the concessions.
“I guess the best bring the best out of you,” DeRozan shrugged about this gratefully strange trip the Bulls are on that’s seen the most painful losses and prideful wins. “Now we’ve got to translate that over to: We’ve got to carry that within in and go out there and play like that every single night and not worry about we’re playing a good team, are we playing a not so good team and we’re going to run over them. We’ve got to play with that sense of urgency every single night, and nights like this we’ve got to turn into consistency.”
Though DeRozan did take a moment to savor the show.
“Very theatrical,” DeRozan agreed. “That’s what makes a great movie. We’ve just got to end it off well; definitely been entertaining.”
It sure was; well, at least toward the end after the Bucks were doing the bullying through the third quarter ahead at times by double digits and then a 12-0 start to the fourth quarter that most in the vicinity assumed would close the curtain on this one.
But if these Bulls aren’t always reliable, they don’t do a very good job, either, of giving up.
“We just kept fighting,” said Zach LaVine, who scored 24 points and made two crucial, how-did-he-make-that threes in the last minutes of regulation. “Obviously, we were trying to man up and do everything we could to keep them off the boards; Giannis was attacking. We made big plays down the end and got to overtime and were able to put it away.
“We’ve got a lot of confident guys, guys who can make plays,” LaVine insisted. ‘We’ve got confidence in each other. Once we were able to buckle down on the defensive end… We’ve got the personnel to make those big shots and have the confidence down the stretch. We’ve shown at times being able to get a lot of stops.”
Oh right, those DeRozan defensive plays.
The first was with 4:58 left in regulation and the presumptive three-point play from the diving, driving Antetokounmpo that looked like it would effectively end the game. On another of those drives where he seemed like he was winding up like the road runner in the cartoons, DeRozan got in front of Antetokounmpo. He was called for a foul as the ball trickled in for an apparent 101-88 Bucks lead.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan, who has gotten pretty good at this lately, challenged the foul call, which was overturned to a Antetokounmpo charge giving the Bulls possession and then a DeRozan layup out of the timeout. That made it a potential five-point swing that was enough margin to give the Bulls hope. Milwaukee missed a quick three, and LaVine made the first of his big two. And it was on. Bucks now by just six with 4:15 left.
It’s been a wild week in the NBA with several of these hasn’t-happened-in-the-last-10,000 or so games things with the Clippers making up a 13-point deficit on the Pistons in about three minutes, and then Luka Doncic and the Mavericks’ amazing turnaround of a nine-point deficit in about 30 seconds. DeRozan always says he’s learned over the years there’s time if there’s time. And more than ever in the NBA, it holds this season.
According to ESPN statistics, it was a five in the last 12,535 games exception for the Bulls comeback.
“As long as there is time on the clock, I believe we can win a game,” said DeRozan. “I watched Luka win a game last night (Tuesday) down nine points with 30 seconds to go, so anything is possible.”
Even DeRozan as Jordan on defense.
We don’t see that much, and it’s OK. It’s who he is. But he understands better than most the big moments, and that intelligence can overcome athleticism, tortoise and hare stuff and all that.
So in those last two minutes of regulation, the champion Bucks looked like they were in the crosshairs, looking for Antetokounmpo to bail them out while the Bulls were firing away, scoring in five straight possessions.
Still, it seemed like the Bucks could escape after DeRozan wiggled in to score with 13.8 seconds left to cut Milwaukee’s lead to 106-104. If the Bucks could inbound and make two free throws… Yeah, not so certain these days for the world’s best basketball players, as we’ve seen.
The Bulls pressured hard, but the Bucks got the ball in to Grayson Allen (more on him later, as usual). But the Bulls had a foul to give. So the Bucks had to try it again and both Giannis and Allen flinched, and DeRozan rose.
“Just anticipating it,” DeRozan explained as he followed Allen creeping to get the ball from Antetokounmpo. “Kind of understand you’ve got a clock in your head (about the five seconds they have). You kind of understand where they are trying to go with the ball and just anticipating it. I read it perfect.”
Allen failed to seal DeRozan with his body, and now with the seconds counting off, Antetokounmpo flinched and tried to flip the ball to Allen. DeRozan stepped in between.
“Got the steal, seen Ayo (Dosunmu) leaking out and hit him for the dunk,” remembered DeRozan.
Antetokounmpo took off trying to block Dosunmu, who smartly went up to dunk the ball instead of risking a Giannis block on a layup attempt. Shockingly, the score was tied at 106 with 7.8 seconds left in regulation. And the Bulls even had a chance to win the game in regulation when Antetokounmpo was called for traveling with 1.4 seconds left in regulation. DeRozan fumbled away the inbounds pass for overtime as much as the Bulls timekeepers tried to help by not starting the game clock when the Bulls touched the ball.
But the Bucks after starting overtime with four consecutive points when Patrick Williams missed shots, couldn’t catch DeRozan.
He scored on a drive, then passed to Vučević, who had 15 points and 14 rebounds, for a three on top that gave the Bulls a 111-110 lead. That was the Bulls first lead since halftime. And then the way Milwaukee was shooting, bucks all over Wisconsin had to be smiling. Just wish those were the guys out hunting, eh?
DeRozan made one jumper and faked and feinted his way to the free throw line for six more free throws in the overtime, 12 of 14 overall for another you just shake your head about. More up and down than side to side.
That would be UC Public Enemy No. 1, Allen, who famously last year put Alex Caruso out with that body slam takedown that sidelined Caruso for six weeks. Caruso still was out Wednesday from his shoulder/concussion combination, but seemed close to playing and could return Friday against Detroit. Derrick Jones Jr. also remained out for Milwaukee, but the Bulls did get a break with Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday out for the Bucks.
Which put Allen in play more often, and he was brutal.
In his play, also, three of 14 on threes which basically doomed the Bucks since the Bulls were double and triple teaming Giannis on drives and Allen could check the spelling on the game ball as he lined up his shots.
Which all was much to the delight of the home fans even before it appeared Allen took a cheap shot at DeRozan midway through the third quarter. It really wasn’t much, and even after the officials checked they called a foul only on Williams, who pushed Allen, who bumped into DeRozan. But seeing who it was, DeRozan moved menacingly toward Allen. And it almost was on. It wasn’t.
“If it were Boban (TV commercials star Marjanović of Houston) I wouldn’t have did nothing,” said DeRozan. “I didn’t know if it was on purpose or what happened; I just felt a hit. It felt like I went across the middle in a football game and tried to catch a slot route and got hit.”
He’s always trying to draw a picture, if also the occasional charge.
Everyone started yelling and hooting and Graysoning. The only technicals came soon after for DeRozan and Bobby Portis, the latter the only other effective Buck with 20 points and 11 rebounds.
“You’ve got to live moments like that; that’s the aggressive sport we’re playing,” said DeRozan. “I grew up playing talking trash sunup to sundown. No man can extra motivate me; he didn’t do nothing for me.”
Teammate LaVine—and the scoreboard—wasn’t so sure with DeRozan’s D and dumping the Bucks in overtime.
“We know his (Allen) track record,” said LaVine. “DeMar got elbowed in the back of the head. We made up for it with a big win and DeMar responded the right way; the next 20 minutes you saw what happened. The next five minutes and down the stretch he had one thing in his mind. That’s the type of player he is; you don’t want to fire up somebody like that.”
There’s that old saying about the bigger they are, the harder they fall. It didn’t work out exactly that way for the 19th century boxer originally credited with the comment, Robert Fitzsimmons. The Bulls are starting to take them down. Maybe there is something to see here.
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