For the first time all season, the Chicago Bulls had their full team available, which appeared to give them an advantage coming into Thursday’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers, who were without their two best players in center Joel Embiid and guard Ben Simmons.
Instead, the Bulls began the second half of the NBA season with a clunker, a 127-105 loss reminiscent of their noncompetitive games to start the season. The Bulls were outclassed in every facet, but especially in the paint where they were dominated for a season-high 78 points.
“I didn’t think we did anything very well tonight, and that was the disappointing part,” coach Billy Donovan said. “You can make a lot of excuses if you want to — All-Star break, time off, everything else. It didn’t seem to bother Philly too much. We have to own this one, because it was really, in my opinion, a huge step backward for our basketball team.”
After an encouraging first half of the season put the Bulls (16-19) in position to compete for a playoff spot in a crowded Eastern Conference, a loss like this has the potential to end up as a huge missed opportunity.
Two more Eastern Conference playoff contenders will arrive at the United Center this weekend during a relentless second-half schedule, starting with the Miami Heat on Friday and Toronto Raptors on Sunday. In order to compete with playoff caliber teams, the Bulls will need a much more inspiring effort than they turned in Thursday.
“We didn’t do anything tonight to even think about deserving to want to win or be in a position to win,” Donovan said. ‘We hung around and made some runs here and there, but clearly I think from start to finish Philadelphia was by far the superior team.”
Here are three takeaways from Thursday’s game.
1. Enduring the second-half schedule.
With the NBA trying to complete a 72-game schedule during a pandemic, games are about to come at a rapid pace. The Bulls have a back-to-back to kick off the second half right and are in the midst of a stretch of five games in seven nights. The Bulls will attempt to fit in 37 games before the scheduled end of the regular season on May 16, barring any additional postponements due to COVID-19.
For Donovan, it means trying to help get his players through the rest of the season healthy.
“There’s three parts to that,” Donovan said. “Your eyes: what you are watching to see how guys are moving and playing. The other part is taking their inventory, how they are feeling, what they are going through physically, mentally, emotionally. And then the medical part plays a big piece just in terms of the loads, managing that and looking at the numbers and how they are feeling.”
The Bulls were off for nine months after last season got shut down. They have one of the youngest rosters in the NBA, so Donovan has rarely had to rest healthy players often this season — Otto Porter Jr. did sit out a few back-to-backs earlier in the year.
Donovan has been careful in limiting his veteran players’ minutes as much as possible, even keeping them out of the starting lineup, but he has also been wary of the number of minutes guards Zach LaVine and Coby White have had to play. So it will be interesting to see how he keeps his team fresh, especially if the Bulls can continue to remain in the playoff hunt.
“I take my offseason workouts seriously,” LaVine said. “I try and stay in tip-top condition, so I’ll be OK. I got a couple days off (for the All-Star break); that’s all I really needed. Had a good time at the All-Star game, now it’s time to lock back in. We’ve got to start winning some of these games because they’re coming fast.”
2. Lauri Markkanen looed sharp, Otto Porter a little less so — and Chandler Hutchison dressed but was still out.
One of the few positives for the Bulls on Thursday was how sharp forward Lauri Markkanen looked in his first game back after missing more than a month with a shoulder injury. He scored 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting (7 of 7 from 3).
“I felt all right. Physically, still just getting my wind back and my legs back into game shape,” Markkanen said. “I had a couple practices, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I felt all right. Still got a ways to go, but not too bad.”
Markkanen provided a boost back in the starting lineup, but his production could not keep the Bulls in the game. Donovan said he would monitor Markkanen’s minutes, but once he got hot vs. the 76ers, Donovan allowed Markkanen to stay in the game for 28 minutes. Markkanen expects to play Friday on a back-to-back and doesn’t think there will be any restrictions going forward.
“I’m preparing to play every single game,” he said. “Didn’t hear anything about this game that I would be on a restriction or anything like that, so I guess that means I’m not. But I can’t confirm that.”
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Porter also played for the first time since early February after recovering from a back injury, but his return was much quieter, scoring three points on 1 of 6 shooting in 18 minutes. The Bulls are likely to be much more cautious with the 27-year-old Porter, considering he has battled many lingering injuries the past few seasons.
Their two returns put the Bulls nearly at full strength. Forward Chandler Hutchison, who has not played since Feb. 5 for personal reasons, is still out. Curiously, Hutchison was dressed on the sidelines for Thursday’s game, but Donovan said he was not available to play.
“Just in my conversations with him coming out of the All-Star break, although he is active, he’s still not in the position where he is ready to play at this point in time,” Donovan said. “But I think he’s made some positive strides; I really think there are some good things that have come in speaking to him coming out of the break that he feels he’s really been able to, from his perspective, to continue to work on things he really wants to work on. But he’s still not at a place where either he or I feel comfortable or think he’s ready to come back and play at this point in time.”
3. Zach LaVine is honored to be chosen for Team USA’s roster pool.
LaVine was named one of the 57 finalists for Team USA’s roster pool for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
There will be no tryouts for the team this season and players are expected to be chosen by a committee, The Associated Press reported. Rosters will be cut down to 12 by early this summer. Training camp for Team USA is expected to begin on July 2 — while the NBA playoffs are still going on — and the Olympics start July 23.
After Thursday’s game, LaVine said if he gets selected, he plans on going.
“You’ve got to take that as an accomplishment,” he said. “I did that when I was younger. I was on the invite team that played against the top guys. Now to go in there with the pool players to have a chance to go over to the Olympics is a big honor. I’m going to go out there and try to play for my country.”