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Over the course of an 82-game NBA season, there are bound to be nights when a team just doesn’t have it. What the Chicago Bulls experienced on Monday against the Indiana Pacers was on a whole other level, though. This was record-breaking stuff in the worst possible way.
By making just 36.5% of their field-goal attempts in the contest, the Bulls had their worst shooting night since a May 15 loss to the Brooklyn Nets last season. It was also their second-worst effort from the field since the 2020-21 season tipped off. Consequently, Chicago scored just 77 points in the loss.
Here’s some more history for you — that output represented the first time in almost two years that the Bulls had put up less than 80 points in a game.
“We’re not getting the game back, but there is a standard and an expectation we expect to play to, and certainly tonight was not that,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said after the loss, via the Chicago Tribune.
“Nights like this happen. If it catapults us going forward to make us better than OK, great. But if it’s not something that helps us, then it’s a missed opportunity.”
Bulls Are Still Getting High Grades For Resurgent Start
Although the Pacers game was an epic fail from top to bottom, the Bulls are still off to their best start in recent memory. And people around the hoops blogosphere have taken note of the incredible turnaround.
On Monday, Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale published his early-season grades for every team in the Association. And while the Bulls definitely haven’t been perfect, they have performed well enough to earn a rare A-grade from the scribe.
Wrote Favale of the team’s surprising jump out of the gate:
Don’t pretend you saw these Chicago Bulls coming. You didn’t. Even the most happy-go-lucky optimists could not have predicted they’d be contending for the Eastern Conference’s best record while propping up a top-seven offense and top-friggin’-five defense.
He went on to note that the Bulls have excelled despite some pretty big things not going according to plan.
Specifically, Patrick Williams only appeared in a handful of games before going down (perhaps for the year), Nikola Vucevic has been a hot mess — and he’s also spent time in the health and safety protocols — and Coby White is just now getting his feet wet.
As Favale sees it, the Bulls’ big offseason acquisitions have made the big leap possible:
It turns out the Bulls’ primary additions are real difference-makers, almost as if good players can do good things. DeMar DeRozan has provided a steadying offensive hand, wreaking havoc out of the pick-and-roll and streamlining some of Zach LaVine’s offensive existence. Lonzo Ball is splashing threes, including pull-up looks, and defending his butt off. Alex Caruso leads the league in steal percentage and is in the top-three of deflections per game.
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Bears’ Nagy Hears It From the United Center Crowd
As bad as the Bulls were against the Pacers — and at home, no less — they weren’t the only ones to take an L in the game. For his part, Matt Nagy looks to have lost the entire city of Chicago.
With the Bulls trailing by 30 and the crowd in attendance at the United Center having fully checked out, fans turned their attention to the Bears football coach, who had suffered through a 16-13 loss to the Lamar Jackson-less Baltimore Ravens just one day earlier.
This was what resulted:
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