After reeling off five consecutive wins to open the season, the Bulls lost in New York on Sunday and appeared to be on the verge of a second straight loss on Tuesday vs. Philadelphia. However, as Jamal Collier of ESPN details, Chicago overcame a 24-point deficit to defeat the Sixers by a score of 113-111, completing the largest NBA comeback so far this season.
Josh Giddey, whose restricted free agency dragged on for nearly three months this offseason before he signed a new four-year, $100MM contract with the Bulls, was the driving force in the victory. He led the team in points (29), rebounds (15), and assists (12), making him the first Bull since Michael Jordan to register triple-doubles in back-to-back games.
Giddey admitted it was “cool” to accomplish a feat last achieved by Jordan, per Kyle Williams of The Chicago Sun-Times, but made it clear that the “individual stuff” was secondary to winning the game.
“Tonight was one of the best wins that I’ve ever been a part of,” he said, according to Collier. “Just in terms of how bad we were down that early in the third. And to gut that one out and dig ourselves out of the hole that we did was unbelievable.”
Veteran center Nikola Vucevic, who hit the game-winning shot to secure the victory for the Bulls, was impressed with the team’s resilience but stressed that he and his teammates can’t get into the habit of giving up 45 points in the first quarter.
“It’s important that we understand this is not how you can become a good team by getting down 20 and then waking up and start to finally play,” Vucevic said. “We have to play better from the beginning. This game was a great example of what we can be when we play the way we need to. So hopefully we can use this as a good learning experience for us and understand that we have to do this for 48 minutes.”
Here’s more on the Bulls:
- Chicago is off to a 6-1 start without guard Coby White, who was the team’s leading scorer in the second half last season. According to Julia Poe of The Chicago Tribune (subscription required), head coach Billy Donovan said that White (left calf strain) is still “a couple weeks away” from playing in a game. “I watched him today — he is sprinting, running, cutting, jumping, trying to do everything completely full speed,” Donovan said on Tuesday. “He’s felt really, really good. … This has just taken a while. I think you can see around the league, there’s a lot of guys dealing with these calves right now. It’s just the way it is.”
- Seven of the 15 players on the Bulls’ standard roster are in contract years, but the team has bought in so far on Donovan’s call for a team-first approach, writes Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. “Right when training camp started, I addressed of all this, because we have seven or eight guys that are in the same situation, and I think it’s very easy if you’re not in the rotation or you’re not playing well to start to press, start to think about yourself,” Donovan said. “There’s a level of unselfishness [we needed] where you can start thinking about others — other than yourself, certainly — when your situation is uncertain going forward. … Like I told those guys, [free agency] will get here in July. Why worry or think about that when you have things in front of you now? We don’t have a team that can [isolate] or guys just go get theirs. We’ve got to rely on each other.”
- After spending three days in the G League with the Windy City Bulls, rookie forward Noa Essengue was recalled to the NBA on Wednesday, per the team. Chicago doesn’t play again until Friday, so Essengue may have the opportunity to practice with the NBA club this week. As Donovan told reporters when Essengue was initially assigned to the G League on Sunday, the team had planned since the draft to take a patient approach with him. “This is a guy at 18 years old who has a huge runway in front of him to get better and to improve, but we’re going to have to invest in his development,” Donovan said, per Cowley. “It may not be with us. It may be going back and forth between us and the G League. Those were things discussed back in June.”
I’m a big believer in the ” Best Player Available” Draft strategy in general, But to draft a guy who’s rookie contract will basically be over by the time he arrives just doesn’t make me want to jump up and down. This team, As good( Lucky) as they have been has needed something for many years now and continues to ignore it every year. Look Achiuwa isn’t Karl Malone but he rebounds and can run the floor which would seem to fit in with what the Bulls are trying to do so why do they keep ignoring it in the draft and FA? Not to mention cheap. So what IS the plan? When your PG leads the team in boards what does that say?
I’ve agreed over the last couple years that their resistance to get a PF is confounding. That being said, it seems like billy is finally acquiescing a tad, when Collins is back he’ll hopefully run a lil double bigs w him/vuc/smith like they did in preseason.
The starting group has somehow worked w no rim protection, and limited rebounding; Giddey has been big there. I like achiuwa but perhaps his defense and rebounding don’t offset his lack of offense.
Long term I still think getting a legit lob threat / rim protector , like a young Capela, would really transform this team. Gotta give Vuc his credit tho, his passing and movement are flourishing so much more with the ballhog bros detained to Sac.
Still don’t have the guy regardless. At least they’ve proven to have a solid infrastructure as far as almost everything else.