CHICAGO — The Chicago Bulls wanted vengeance. They didn’t attempt to hide it ahead of Friday night’s game. But the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t offer the Bulls any chance for redemption, clinching a 118-112 win to send the Bulls into a four-game losing streak.
The Bulls entered the game ready to rumble, still fuming over the flagrant-2 foul by Grayson Allen in January that fractured Alex Caruso’s right wrist. But for all those promises, the recreational activities of the so-called revenge game were limited to a few full-throated choruses of boos from United Center fans.
“You understand it. I don’t think it’s something you need to talk about it,” DeMar DeRozan said. “You know what’s what. You realize it every single day when you see a teammate that’s not playing because of an injury that was caused by a team that we’re playing. It’s just something you just know.”
Despite issuing loosely veiled threats Thursday toward Allen, Tristan Thompson never lived up to his pregame bluster. He picked up his third foul midway through the second quarter, leaving little room for potshots.
Allen still seemed affected by the pressure even without a looming tackle from Thompson. The guard sheepishly avoided contact on either side of the ball for the first half, scoring seven points and going 1 for 5 from 3-point range.
But despite the spotlight on Allen, the challenge for the Bulls remained the same: attempting to shut down the singular talent of Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan attempted to counter the size of Antetokounmpo and the Bucks by starting Thompson in a two-big system alongside Nikola Vučević, which he debuted in Miami and increasingly utilized in Atlanta.
The Bulls didn’t rebound the ball or protect the rim more effectively with two big men on the court. They were outrebounded 12-5 on the offensive glass and outscored 18-10 in second-chance opportunities. Throwing two bigs at Antetokounmpo barely slowed him — at one point in the third quarter, he dunked over Vučević and Thompson on a double-team.
Coming off the bench for the first time since he returned from injury, Javonte Green played a critical role. The more nimble power forward scored nine points, picking off loose balls on back-to-back plays in the second half to drive for thunderous slams. But he also picked up four fouls as he struggled to make up for the half-foot height difference between him and Antetokounmpo.
Donovan reverted to the two-big lineup for the final four minutes of the game, but the pairing couldn’t slow Antetokounmpo any better. Antetokounmpo finished with 34 points and 16 rebounds. He was heavily supplemented by the late-game production of Jrue Holiday, who finished with 26 points.
Backup small forward Derrick Jones Jr. nearly became the unlikely player to deliver the avenging haymaker on the Bucks — in more ways than one.
Jones took the Bulls’ only shot on Allen, bodying him to the ground to prevent a layup and picking up a flagrant-1 foul for following through with an elbow to the guard’s head. He insisted after the game that the foul wasn’t intentional.
“What happened in Milwaukee ... it’s obvious we didn’t like it,” Jones said. “But I’m not going to go out there and just try to take a man out. That’s just not who I am. (I’m not) going to blatantly try to take that man out. He’s got a family to take care of.”
Although Jones made only two baskets in the loss, both were highlights in galvanizing stretches as the Bulls clawed their way to a seven-point lead in the third quarter. The peak came when Jones lofted himself over the reigning NBA Finals MVP.
Jones rubbed the moment in, swinging himself around on the rim to stare Antetokounmpo down in midair. Coby White nearly sent Jones to the ground with a crushing chest bump when the Bucks called a timeout, soaking in waves of cheers from Bulls fans as the replay showed on the screen above the crowd.
But those few explosive moments weren’t enough to grind down the Bucks defense, which blanketed DeRozan.
Holiday and Wesley Matthews tucked themselves close to DeRozan throughout the game, combining to hold the Bulls’ leading scorer to 11-for-30 shooting. DeRozan still wriggled free enough to score 29 points, but the dip in his efficiency kept him from killing off the Bucks defense with his typical ferocity.
Zach LaVine showed more bounce in his step weeks after undergoing a procedure on his left knee, but he went 3 for 10 from 3-point range as the Bulls shot 10 for 26 from behind the arc.
The biggest disparity between the two offenses came at the free-throw line. Antetokounmpo took 19 attempts while the entire Bulls roster took only 11. Although the Bucks shot 22 for 33 from the line, the quantity was enough to hold off the attempted comeback.
As the Bulls slumped to fourth in the East with their fourth straight loss, DeRozan said the team needs to the turn the corner of learning from the mistakes of losses against top conference opponents.
“You learn from how hard it is to compete in this league and night in and night out to be a team like the Milwaukee Bucks that won the championship,” DeRozan said. “We’ve got to take these growing pains on the chin and understand that if you really want to win, you’ve got to get back up on your feet when you get knocked down. ... We’ve got to take on the challenge. That was good for us to get hit and see how hard it really is to win in this league.”
