The Chicago Bulls came back to their home court on Monday riding some momentum as they had just won three of four on their tricky road trip out West.
Things did not go well for the Bulls in Chicago, however. Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks were in town, and they wasted no time getting ahead of the Bulls as they were up 44-16 after the first quarter. The Mavericks never slowed down, and they went on to win 127-92.
Losses like that are difficult, especially after the Bulls had played so well away from home. The start they got off to was abysmal, and they made it almost impossible to get a win with their first quarter performance. Bulls head coach Billy Donovan discussed what went wrong after the game.
“I thought that the transition easy buckets, the offensive rebound easy buckets, the layup easy buckets coupled with us not shooting it well, you dig yourself an enormous hole,” Billy Donovan told the media after the game. “We need to be better protecting the basket than we did, I thought that was the biggest challenge. …What hurts you is when you give up that number of threes, but you give up offensive rebounds, fouls, layups, transition stuff. …We had none of those things that we needed in the first quarter.”
After a big win over the Golden State Warriors last week, the Bulls were just one game back of being .500. They have flirted with that mark a few times this season, but they haven’t been able to get there. After the loss to Dallas, Chicago is now 31-34, and they have some work to do if they want to finish with a winning record.
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