INDIANAPOLIS — The letdown came on quickly for the Chicago Bulls after two emotional wins at home this week.
The Bulls couldn’t keep the ball in their hands — or out of their own net — as they dropped a 129-113 loss to the Indiana Pacers. Zach LaVine maintained a four-game streak of scoring at least 30 points, the longest of his career.
But heroism from LaVine and Coby White (19 points, 5 assists) couldn’t offset a dreadful first half of haphazard ball handling and uninspired defense.
“That’s on us just being professional,” forward Patrick Williams said. “That’s our job to show up to play. It’s the best league in the world. You can’t just show up and expect to win and show up half-asses and expect to compete in the game. We definitely have enough talent when we compete and play hard to beat anybody. I think we’ve kind of shown that. But we have nights like this where we’re just not ready for it.”
Here are four takeaways from the loss:
1. Perimeter pressure proved too tough.
On paper, Indiana and Chicago might look like similar teams — fast-paced, strong shooters, thriving in the open court when they can outrun their opponent. But in practice, the Pacers are a version of the Bulls if they could apply any consistent defensive pressure on their opponents at the arc.
The game was lost early as the Bulls crumbled at the first sign of pressure on the perimeter. The Pacers attacked switches and met players with physicality at the point of attack, forcing immediate errors out of the Bulls. Starting point guard Josh Giddey was affected the most, coughing up three turnovers in the opening quarter and finishing the game with five giveaways.
The Bulls gave up eight turnovers in the first quarter and 14 in the entire first half. This sloppiness calmed completely in the second half — when they gave up only four turnovers in total — but at that point the game had slipped too far out of hand. And even when the Bulls regained control over their turnovers, they couldn’t move the ball consistently to sustain a creative rhythm, tallying only eight assists on 19 made baskets.
2. Bulls sank into a 3-point shooting skid.
The Bulls completely revived their offense this season by committing to a higher pace and ratcheting up their volume of 3-point shots. But that newfound source of scoring has become a double-edged sword as the Bulls offense is increasingly dependent on making shots from behind the arc.
On Wednesday, the Bulls paid the price for this reliance as they continued a slight 3-point shooting skid. The Bulls shot 12-for-35 (34.3%) from behind the arc and made only four 3-pointers in the opening half. Nikola Vučević did not attempt a single 3-pointer despite being the team’s second-best 3-point shooter this season.
3. Nothing doing on defense.
Defense became the glaring weakness of this Bulls team long before their first snap of the season in the fall. But the loss in Indiana showcased how even a slight lack of effort can exacerbate this team’s lack of defensive rigor. Throughout the first half, the Bulls missed rotations and failed to step into lanes, allowing the Pacers to hammer blow-by drives to the basket.
As a result, they were outscored 76-54 in the paint as the Pacers capitalized on size disadvantages. Williams struggled mightily with an outsized defensive matchup against Pascal Siakam, who terrorized the low post for 26 points and popped out to sink a trio of 3-pointers.
With Myles Turner sidelined, Pacers center Thomas Bryant thrived on these disadvantages, scoring an additional 22 points as he powered through Williams, Vučević, Matas Buzelis and any other player who stepped in his way.
4. Chris Duarte earned a look.
As one of the last guards in the rotation, Chris Duarte had made only 13 appearances this season, mostly slotting in for the final minutes of garbage time. But coach Billy Donovan went to Duarte early in the first half of Wednesday’s game, attempting to inject new life into a guard unit that was failing to provide.
Duarte scored five points and went 1-for-2 from behind the arc and tallied three assists and three rebounds in 14 minutes.