The Chicago Bulls have rallied hard to secure a 121-107 victory over Boston, who haven’t lost a game since November 2nd.
The Bulls had lost their last four games but decided today would be different. Zach LaVine entered the fourth quarter with 06:12 left to play and the score was at 104-96 to the Bulls.
No more than eight seconds later, he made a 27-foot three point jumper and proceeded to make two more 3’s in the quarter to help put his team beyond doubt.
“I’ve got an enormous amount of confidence in his offense and his ability to shoot the ball,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said of LaVine postgame. “He’s done that through his entire career. He’s elite at it.”
“It’s probably not going to show up in the stats sheet but he generated a lot of open shots for our guys,” Donovan explained.
“He didn’t shoot the ball at the percentage rate that he normally does but like I said, I’m not worried about it.
“He still got 22 points tonight but he did it defensively, he did it with his passing, he tried to get in there and rebound, he made good decisions so I thought he did a lot of extremely positive things.”
Coby ➡️ Zach 😤@ZachLaVine | @NBCSChicago pic.twitter.com/iM2nUwGJix
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) November 22, 2022
DeMar DeRozan tied with Jayson Tatum for the game-high of 28 points and also had eight rebounds and four assists. His three-point and free throw percentage were both 100.
Poetry.@DeMar_DeRozan | @NBCSChicago pic.twitter.com/TwkiCfDi1v
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) November 22, 2022
Boston were almost at full strength, bar Danilo Gallinari (left knee ACL repair) and Robert Williams (left knee surgery) and their stars were working hard for a win and to stay on top of the Eastern conference ladder.
Tatum scored 28 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists, while Jaylen Brown had 25 points and seven rebounds but it wasn’t enough. The only time they led was in the first two minutes of the game.
The Bulls were dominant in the paint, out-scoring the Celtics by ten points and out-rebounding them by 13. Bulls’ big man Nikola Vucevic had 13 rebounds himself, while Andre Drummond had 12 off the bench.
“I give Vooch a lot of credit because it was a game where he had a lot of opportunities to get post-ups in that second half and we kind of missed him or they fronted him and they took away the opportunity,” Donovan said. “But he kept playing, he kept defending, he kept trying to rebound, he kept trying to do other things.”
In a wild stat, two of Boston’s four losses this season have been handed to them by the Bulls.
Chicago will look to keep a roll on when they face the difficult task of Milwaukee on the road Wednesday night. After that, their grueling away trip continues against OKC, Utah, Phoenix, Golden State and Sacramento.