Ayo Dosunmu elevated to a new level for the Chicago Bulls in the final seconds of Friday’s 122-115 road win over the Indiana Pacers.
With 16.3 seconds left and the Bulls holding a three-point lead, the rookie barreled from the top of the key through a gap in Pacers defenders, rising up to float above the rim before hammering down a game-winning dagger of a dunk.
“That was my adrenaline,” Dosunmu said. “That was just the best play to make.”
The night was record-setting for Dosunmu — his third double-double with 15 points and a career-high 14 assists.
The Bulls were stripped down to a bare-bones lineup at the guard position against the Pacers after Zach LaVine was sidelined with back spasms. But the loss of their leading shooting guard just gave the Bulls more room to develop an increasingly important connection between Dosunmu and center Nikola Vučević.
LaVine played through the spasms for two games, visibly wincing and grabbing at his upper back Thursday during the Bulls’ overtime road loss to the Toronto Raptors. Afterward, LaVine said he was in pain throughout the game and chose to play regardless, but the guard needed rest in the second night of a back-to-back road series.
With guards Alex Caruso (right wrist) and Lonzo Ball (left knee) out for six to eight weeks and Coby White also sidelined with a nagging groin injury, the Bulls were forced to rely on Dosunmu heavily.
Dosunmu, who on Tuesday was named to the Rising Stars competition for NBA All-Star Weekend later this month, started his 14th game Friday, continuing a stretch as the starting point guard for his hometown team because of widespread injuries. The rookie recorded the third double-double of his career against the Pacers, picking off steals at the top of the key and sprinting full-court to set up his teammates.
The performance showed a resounding rebound from the night before, when Dosunmu turned the ball over twice in the final minute of the overtime loss in Toronto.
After the rookie Dosunmu recorded 35 assists and only seven turnovers in the last five games, coach Billy Donovan saw Dosunmu’s reaction to those mistakes as critical to the rookie’s growth. Dosunmu said the positive emphasis helped him quickly recover Friday.
“It’s like one of those times when you get in trouble in school and you don’t know how your parent’s going to react,” Dosunmu said. “He called me this morning, and I’m thinking he’s going to be upset of course, but he came to me and the only question he asked was what I learned (Thursday). I told him that I’m picking up my dribble at the baseline and just having better court awareness in the game. He was like, ‘Cool, you got it.’ ... That just makes me want to come out here and go through a wall for him because I know he believes in me.”
The Bulls were fortunate to face a similarly diminished opponent in the Pacers, who were missing center Myles Turner (left foot) and Domantas Sabonis (health and safety protocols). The towering pair define the Pacers’ style of play, which often has challenged the Bulls in their small-ball approach this season.
Without Turner and Sabonis hounding the rim, the game tore wide open for Vučević to dominate the paint as the Bulls reveled in a rare opportunity to out-size their opponent. Vučević finished with 36 points in his second straight 30-point performance and added 17 rebounds.
“I’m not really used to playing against smaller guys,” Vučević said. “Tonight what we really did well was — it wasn’t just kind of straight post ups for me where I had to go two or three dribbles to get to the rim. It was a lot of seals out of ball movement where I was able to seal in the paint and just turn in score. So a lot of my points were really just easy.”
Despite a slow start with the Bulls, the center has found his rhythm in the last three weeks, recording a double-double in points and rebounds in eight of the last nine games. Vučević hammered the Pacers at both ends of the court, swatting three blocks in 56 seconds to protect the rim in the fourth quarter.
The Pacers were ready with their own counter — Caris LeVert. The point guard dropped 20 points in the first quarter to keep the Bulls from running away and finished with a game-high 42 points. The Bulls focused their defense entirely on LeVert in the second half, smothering the guard in hedge traps and attempting to force the ball out of his hands.
Although the Bulls tightened their ball security in the fourth quarter to cement the win, the game highlighted the gaps in the Bulls defense as they allowed the third-to-last team in the league to hang around through the final whistle.
The Bulls already were managing LaVine carefully after discomfort in his left knee — he previously tore an ACL in 2017 — forced the guard to sit out two weeks in January.
As a leader and two-time All-Star — he was named a reserve Thursday — LaVine is one of the heartbeats of the roster alongside DeMar DeRozan. The Bulls strategize LaVine’s health with eyes set on the postseason, advising him and DeRozan, among others, to sit out games during challenging periods of the season like the Bulls’ current stretch of seven games in 10 days.
DeRozan scored 31 points on 11-for-26 shooting and made all nine of his free-throw attempts.
Donovan said he’s hopeful LaVine will be available for Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Sixers at the United Center, but a meeting with the team’s medical staff Saturday will determine his availability.
“That’s certainly the hope,” Donovan said. “He wants to play. It beats him up a little bit mentally when he can’t get out there, especially in a game where you have a tough loss in overtime. He wants to get back out there.
“I think if he can play, he’s going to ... but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions until I talk to medical to see what tomorrow (Saturday) looks like and how he’s feeling.”
