CLEVELAND – One glance around the Eastern Conference these days and there’s not a whole lot that has this Bulls team flinching.
There shouldn’t be.
All the hype coming into the season was that with long-term injuries to both All-Stars Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum, Indiana and Boston, respectively, could struggle, leaving the landscape there for the taking.
As the Bulls are finding out the last two nights, however, easier said than done.
After watching perennial MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo take their hearts late in Milwaukee on Friday, it was another star player flexing late on them, as Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell scored 13 of his 29 points in the final stanza, helping the Cavaliers pull away 128-122 Saturday night.
It’s still a star power league and the Bulls are finding that out.
“Nope, spot on,” Bulls guard Josh Giddey said of that narrative. “When teams have No. 1 guys – Giannis (Friday) night and Mitchell (Saturday) – they’re the guys you want to get the ball out of their hands and don’t let them beat you. It happened both nights and offensively we didn’t execute at all (in the fourth). I put that on myself as the point guard. I’ve got to get us organized and figure out what we’re going to run down the stretch.”
The loss dropped the Bulls to 6-3 on the season, but the key for now, according to coach Billy Donovan, is to keep it all in perspective. As impressive as the climb has been – really starting late last year for this group – an 82-game season is full of black ice. The Bulls have hit a few lately.
“I’m always a little bit reluctant in talking that way from the standpoint of we have to go out there and play games, and we have to earn that right,” Donovan replied, when asked about the conference being vulnerable this season. “So where we finished last year, with (Myles) Turner going to Milwaukee and Haliburton being out, Tatum being out and some of the things that have gone on, you could look at some of those teams as losing key players, and they have, but I think if you look at the East the way it is I think on any given night anybody can beat anybody, quite honestly. I think we have to prove it quite honestly.”
They’ve done a good share of that, beating the likes of projected playoff teams like Detroit, Orlando, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and splitting with the Knicks.
Road trips to Milwaukee and Cleveland, however, were the latest measuring sticks, and the Bulls came up short for both. That included a tailspin in Cleveland in which they were closed out on a 12-0 run.
“It’s just the way we’re built,” Donovan said of the differences between the teams the Bulls have played the last two games. “We’ve got to do it collectively as a group. That’s just the way it’s got to be.”
Which they have shown they can do, evident by a season-high 43-point second quarter against the home team, shooting 12-of-22 from the field and a ridiculous 6-of-8 (75%) from three-point range to put the Cavs in a whole they would spend the entire second half trying to dig out of.
Credit to Cleveland, who was the No. 1 seed in the East last year, for doing just that.
What Donovan wants to see now, however, is his players continuing to focus on the here and now.
“It’s going to come down to how well can we take advantage of the opportunities that are in front of us,” Donovan said. “For me at this point of the season, how can we keep finding a way to try and play a little bit more consistently night in and night out? And I do think we’re no different from any other team, fighting for that consistency.”