Return of the Trashtors! Bulls big 2nd-half comeback extends season

Chicago's best player was Toronto missing a ton of free throws

The Bulls season is not yet over.

It looked like it was going to be sublime mercy-killing to a truly maddening year as the Bulls fell down 19 points early in the third quarter against the Toronto Raptors in the #9 versus #10 play-in matchup.

But the Raptors are similarly maddening, and had a full-on collapse. Tying the game with minutes left in the 4th quarter, the Bulls held on for a 109-105 “victory”. Chicago will now play Jimmy Butler and the Heat in Miami on Friday night, the winner getting in the real playoffs.

This game was pretty much decided by the Raptors missing EIGHTEEN free throws. And that wasn’t just a second-half thing, they were poor all game (perhaps aided by DeMar DeRozan’s daughter screeching under the basket each time) and if they hit a few more early the Bulls would’ve likely rolled over and died. And then it was fitting that the Raptors had a chance to tie the game with 11 seconds remaining, and missed two of three attempts. Trash.

The Bulls were brutal in this game - and in the usual ways - to get down that much to the friggin’ Trashtors. But as we’ve seen many times in his career, in these desperation moments Zach LaVine will all of a sudden start to get buckets. It’s usually for naught (outside of stat-padding), but in this matchup, no comeback could be considered totally fake. LaVine and some excellent defensive play from Alex Caruso and Patrick Williams at least got the Bulls in position to where Toronto could crap(tor) themselves.

30 points in the second half for LaVine, which is a genuine accomplishment and I only (mostly) kid that it’s fitting that the most significant statline in his NBA career literally doesn't count.

I heard this when describing last night’s #7/#8 matchups, but it applied tonight in this one as well: the play-in tournament really is the NBA’s way to produce March Madness. The games are close, the quality of play is poor, and there are do-or-die stakes that ratchets up player and fan intensity to overrule more rational thinking about what we’re really talking about here.

I’ll have more in the next two days, wanted to get another post up for a fresh slate of comments. It was fun to have that atmosphere back, overriding any reticence towards wanting to extend this hopeless season.