The Chicago Bulls righted the ship on the road in Detroit on Monday, snapping a streak of poor defensive outings with a 122-112 win over the Pistons.
Nikola Vučević led the scoring once again with 29 points while Coby White and Zach LaVine added 25 points apiece. The Bulls have now improved to 6-9 on the season and 5-4 on the road, posting a significantly stronger record when they are not playing in their home arena.
Here are five takeaways from the win.
1. Bulls bigs fueled a bounce-back from behind the 3-point arc.
The Bulls had their worst 3-point shooting game of the season on Sunday against the Houston Rockets, going 10-for-34 behind the arc in a disastrous 143-107 loss. But they regressed to the mean in Detroit, shooting 50% from deep to tally 69 of their points off 3-pointers.
For the first three quarters of the game, that 3-point shooting was mostly powered by the team’s two biggest players — Vučević and Jalen Smith.
Vučević has completely revitalized his 3-point shot this season, going 6-for-8 from behind the arc against the Pistons, who consistently gave the center plenty of room to line up his shots on the perimeter. This was the 10th double-double of the season for Vučević, who also tallied 12 rebounds and three blocks.
Smith supplemented shooting with a 2-for-3 performance from behind the arc, while Coby White continued a scorching series of long-range shooting performances with a 5-for-10 night at the perimeter.
2. Zach LaVine came alive in the fourth quarter.
It’s rare for LaVine to have two quiet nights in a row this season. That trend continued on Monday, when he rebounded from a relatively understated 15-point game against the Rockets to rattle off 25 points — 18 of which were scored in the fourth quarter.
LaVine simply could not miss a shot from behind the arc in the fourth quarter, going 6-for-8 to score each of his points in the quarter from 3-point range. The guard ripped off three consecutive 3-pointers in a span of 61 seconds midway through the quarter to spark the scoring frenzy. And he couldn’t help but crack a smile after sinking his sixth and final shot of the quarter, which put the Bulls up by 13 points with a minute and 45 seconds remaining to effectively ice the game.
“He was great,” coach Billy Donovan said. “I thought he played the right way. He’s always going to attract a lot of crowd. I really loved the shots that he took and he didn’t force it. He played inside the framework of how we want to play and then he just had that breakout fourth quarter.”
3. Defense slowed things down.
After giving up more than 140 points in their last two games, the Bulls defense finally got things back under control against Detroit. This meant cleaning up the small stuff — limiting the Pistons to only 15 second-chance points and 13 fast break points, creating five blocks at the rim and holding themselves to 16 fouls.
Coach Billy Donovan still showed clear frustration with his team’s defensive effort, calling a timeout one minute and one second into the second half after the Bulls allowed Jalen Duren to rebound his own shot five times before finally tipping the ball in. But the Bulls mostly contained the Pistons, who rank among the bottom 10 teams in the league in offensive rating.
4. Dalen Terry got chippy.
Third-year wing Dalen Terry isn’t one to back down from a challenge — and he certainly didn’t step back when center Isaiah Stewart gave him a shove in the second quarter as the two bumped bodies under the rim.
Terry had to be restrained by Jalen Smith as he shouted back and forth with Stewart, eventually allowing himself to be walked off to the bench. The pair received offsetting technical fouls and the game continued without consequence, but the small scuffle reflected an important edge that Terry brings to this group.
5. Julian Phillips delivered a thunderous dunk.
Besides sixth man Ayo Dosunmu, it was second-year wing Julian Phillips who recorded the strongest performance off the bench for the Bulls in Detroit. Phillips has been a crucial defensive boost for the secondary rotation, but his scoring is also beginning to develop — especially in catch-and-shoot situations in the corner and on back cuts to the rim.
Phillips didn’t take a single 3 in Detroit, but he registered the biggest highlight of the first three quarters (before LaVine stole the show) — a monstrous slam dunk over Stewart, which started with the wing tapping the ball to his own back before throwing it down with both hands over the larger center.
