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Let’s just get this over with quickly.
The Chicago Bulls had the second game of a back-to-back tonight against the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City, and they promptly got thrashed via a final score of 110-80. Lauri Markkanen had arguably his worst game as a pro (Fred Hoiberg after the game noted Markkanan has been sick the last few games), every starter finished with a +/- rating of at most -8, and Robin Lopez led the Bulls in scoring with 15 points. The offense relied heavily on isolation play once again, the defensive effort was completely absent, and the Bulls just got physically dominated against a team that flat-out wanted to win more than they did.
What else do you want to know? The Jazz outrebounded the Bulls by two, hit nine more threes, dished nine more assists, forced nine more turnovers, recorded seven more steaks, and blocked four more shots. The Bulls scored just 36 points in the paint, shot just 23.8% from distance on 21 attempts, and shot only 37.2% from the field overall as a team. Chicago simply got completely outplayed in virtually every facet of the game and it made for one of the most unpleasant Bulls viewing experiences of this young season.
As previously mentioned, Markkanen played ill tonight and subsequently scored only three points on 1-9 shooting while missing all four of his attempts from deep. The only two players on the Bulls that really looked like they belonged in the NBA tonight were Robin Lopez and Bobby Portis, the latter of which had arguably his best game so far this season with 14 points and eight rebounds. Getting the start at point guard, Kris Dunn finished with 12 points and nine rebounds, but also finished with a team-low +/- rating of -23 in 28 minutes.
The Bulls have now lost 13 games before Thanksgiving, and are 0-3 on their Western Conference road trip heading into their final road contest of the week. That game happens to be a date with the Golden State Warriors at the Oracle on Friday, a team that just lost an extremely heated game with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night. It’s hard to be optimistic that a hungover-from-Thanksgiving Bulls team in the middle of a slide will get anything positive going against a pissed off Warriors squad.
Make sure to give thanks for the NBA not implementing lottery reform until after next year. Happy Thanksgiving BlogaBull!