The white flag came out early in the Chicago Bulls’ seventh consecutive loss.
Coach Billy Donovan sent in the end-of-the-bench players with 4 minutes, 21 seconds remaining in Sunday’s 123-91 loss to the Golden State Warriors at the United Center. It was a rare surrender formation for the Bulls, who have prided themselves on keeping losses close this season.
Barely seven minutes earlier, the Bulls were clinging to a minuscule shred of hope. A fast-break layup by Jevon Carter had cut what was once a 24-point deficit to single digits. That should have sparked a little life — or at least some desperation — into a team that spent the last three weeks preaching urgency.
Spoiler alert: It did not.
The Bulls melted, as they have been. The Warriors battered the defense with a 21-5 run to open the fourth quarter, squashing that last little spark. It’s cold in Chicago — on defense, on offense, everywhere on the court. And whatever the Bulls needed to overcome their worst losing streak since February 2020, they didn’t have it.
This isn’t the version of the Warriors most teams are scared to face. No Stephen Curry, no Draymond Green.
It was clear Jimmy Butler still relishes the opportunity to play his former team all these years later, cracking a small smile as he knocked down his second 3-pointer of the fourth quarter to finish off the Bulls. Still, the Warriors were stretched thin on the second night of a road back-to-back.
This was another game that should have given the Bulls a chance to compete. But those haven’t translated into reality for a team that can’t seem to stop the bleeding a quarter of the way into the season. Even Butler didn’t gloat after the latest stagnant performance by the Bulls.
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“They’ll figure it out,” Butler said. “The city deserves that. The city deserves to win, to be in the playoffs and compete.”
Here are three takeaways from the loss.
1. Begging for effort.
For seven straight games, Donovan has bemoaned a lack of consistency in effort from every player on the roster. It’s unclear when — or how — the Bulls will fix this key aspect of their losing patterns.
It’s not the big picture. Shooting is an issue. Defensive personnel is a clear sticking point. But for the Bulls, the most lacking characteristic is an intentional effort to win the marginal aspects of the game. Every team meeting and film session focuses on this weakness, yet nothing has changed.
Against the Warriors, the Bulls gave up 15 offensive rebounds and lost the second-chance point battle 23-14. They failed to fight for loose balls and gave up the game in transition.
On paper, these statistics add up to a deficit in points. But in live action, they transform into something worse — a lifeless, disconnected style of play.
“This is a group that gets along very, very well,” Donovan said. “They all like each other. But (we can’t win) until they start to love each other enough to block out and then dive on the floor — and do that not for themselves but for the guy next to them. Because we don’t have the luxury of Jimmy Butler putting the game away on a 3 and a couple of drives. We have to do it together.”
2. The bench no longer is mobbing.
The Bulls had almost no help from their bench. Before the fourth quarter — in which reserves logged the majority of the minutes — the bench had only 23 points. The second unit finished with 32 points, including 13 by Carter, who knocked down three of the team’s 11 3-pointers.
The Bulls have prided themselves on their perceived depth, ranking second in the league in bench scoring (44.2 points per game). But that production has tumbled to 35 points per game in the last six losses as the offense continues to stall out.
Injuries clearly have contributed to the drop-off. The Bulls had to rotate two-way players such as rookie Lachlan Olbrich into the back end of the rotation in recent games to account for the dearth of available players. But the bench struggled Sunday despite featuring second-unit mainstays such as Patrick Williams, Dalen Terry and Zach Collins.
3. The Warriors torched from outside.
The Bulls made a mistake in their opening defensive strategy by showing up in a zone, as if daring the Warriors to sit back and sling it from the 3-point arc.
The Warriors eagerly welcomed that dare, knocking down a trio of 3s before they shook the Bulls out of their scheme. The early flurry was enough to put Golden State ahead 11-2 in the first two minutes.
The Warriors haven’t strayed from the model that won the franchise four NBA titles from 2015-22, taking nearly half of their shots from long distance. They sank 22 in 47 attempts (46.8%) against the Bulls, with volume from youngsters Quinten Post (5-for-10) and Brandin Podziemski (5-for-9).