The Bulls did it again.
With their max player — Zach LaVine — out for a third consecutive game, they proved they could get it done without him, notching their third straight win, a 111-100 victory against the Hornets on Wednesday.
“It wasn’t coming down to the wire like it did against Milwaukee and even New Orleans a little bit,” coach Billy Donovan said.
But they still allowed the Hornets to cut their 22-point lead in the fourth quarter to eight even though Charlotte was without leading scorer LaMelo Ball (ankle) and leading rebounder Mark Williams (back).
The Bulls will have to continue to prove they can win without LaVine, who will be out an additional three to four weeks to continue treating his sore right foot. The NBA trade deadline is Feb. 8. The majority of the league becomes tradable on Dec. 15, when free-agent contracts signed in the summer are able to be moved, so it’s possible that LaVine has played his last game with the Bulls.
Similar to their previous two victories, the Bulls were able to regain momentum after some lapses. They answered the Hornets’ runs with their own and didn’t allow a poor first-half performance — specifically in the second quarter — to derail them.
Their first time stringing together three victories this season might be cause for celebration internally, but they’re far from a team that has figured it out. So what is sustainable from this hot streak?
DeMar DeRozan’s response to that question had more to do with what still needs to be improved.
“We still have to clean up a lot of things,” DeRozan said. “Rebounding. We still have a lot to clean up defensively. Rotations, helping our guys a little bit now. We can get better offensively on our execution.”
DeRozan led the Bulls with 29 points, and Nikola Vucevic added 20. Coby White had 19 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
White is riding a hot streak that hasn’t shown any signs of cooling off.
Over the Bulls’ last eight games, White is averaging 21.4 points and 3.9 assists, and he had a 31-point performance against the Pelicans on Saturday. But what Donovan said he wants to continue seeing from White are the game-changing plays. Against the Pelicans, those plays happened with White on the receiving end of two charges from Zion Williamson.
Against Charlotte, Donovan got the playmaker and a decent scoring effort from White, who went 6-for-16 from the field and 3-for-7 from three-point range.
In the third quarter, the Bulls worked the ball around the perimeter, getting it to White, who shook Ish Smith with a fake to the hoop before stepping back for a three. On the next play, he hit a fadeaway jumper from the free-throw line to put the Bulls up by 17. He took two more charges against the Hornets and is currently fifth in the league in drawing charges with seven.
“The scoring is important, but there’s going to be nights he’s not going to score,” Donovan said.
“He really impacted the game with the charges and the extra passes. He’s really focusing on each possession instead of worrying about if I’m missing or making shots, which is a lot of growth from where he was three years ago.”
White came into the locker room after the game with his shooting hand wrapped and said he “tweaked it” after an awkward fall in the first half.
An early X-ray came back negative, White said.
