The Chicago Bulls earned their first win of 2023 with an impressive performance against the Brooklyn Nets and snapped their 12-game winning streak, 121-112. Despite Kevin Durant dropping 44 points, Brooklyn got their first loss since December 6th when they faced the Boston Celtics. With this win, the Bulls are back in the play-in picture in the 10th spot, 17-21 record. Brooklyn will fall to 25-13 and have the third-best record in the Eastern Conference.
Patrick Williams had a tremendous bounce-back performance dropping a season-high 22 points, 12 coming during the first quarter, and got seven rebounds. Another young Bull to perform well was Ayo Dosunmu, who scored 17 points, seven rebounds, and got two steals. DeMar DeRozan scored 22 points, 10 of which came during the fourth quarter. Nikola Vucevic added 21 points and 13 rebounds. Zach Lavine had an off night, shooting 4-for-11, but got 13 points and four assists.
Cold night for anyone not named Durant or Curry
Brooklyn finished the game shooting 46.2% from the field and 32.4% from three, while the Bulls shot 53.1% from the field and 40% from deep. Kyrie Irving shot 10-for-24 but managed to get 25 points. Besides Durant, Irving, and Curry, everybody else combined to shoot 9-for-31 from the field. The significant three-pointer shooters of Royce O’Neale, T.J. Warren, and Joe Harris made zero out of 11 attempts from deep.
KD leads comeback
Kevin Durant scored 39 of his 44 points during the first three quarters. Durant helped the Nets finish the first half on a 13-5 run to cut the 18-point lead to only being down 69-59 at halftime. During the third quarter, he added 11 points to help the Nets cut the lead down to three by the end of the third quarter, 88-85. Durant went 2-for-3 from the field during the fourth. Seth Curry scored 11 of his 22 points during the fourth quarter, but that wasn’t able to match the Bulls in the fourth.
Bulls finish hot to seal the deal
After Kyrie Irving made a layup to get the lead down to three again with 9:29 left in the game, Chicago proceeded to go on a 17-7 run. That run helped the Bulls get their most significant lead of the night at 13 points, 115-102. Almost everybody on the court contributed during that huge run
Phrase of the Night
Free Cheese
“Free Cheese” is a phrase used by Chicago Bulls’ commentator Stacey King; he refers to easy points being made by the big man (Nikola Vucevic taking advantage of small defenders. With that, the biggest weakness of the Brooklyn Nets is switching too much, allowing too many disadvantages in the post. During the Nets run, the Bulls stopped giving Vucevic post-ups when guarded by Royce O’Neale, a guard who does not stand a chance against Vucevic.
When Nikola Vucevic gets the ball and takes care of business in the post, that will draw double teams, which helps the Bulls move the ball and get open shots. Vucevic finished the game with 19 points; seven of his eight made shots were from inside the three-point line. Everyone, especially guards, must know the mismatches and take advantage of them, just like the other good teams in the NBA. That will be key if the Bulls want to play in the postseason.
Up Next
Chicago will travel to face Philadelphia on Friday.
Brooklyn will face New Orleans on Friday
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