After the Miracle on Madison Street — Josh Giddey’s half-court, buzzer-beating shot against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday — the Chicago Bulls were riding a wave that hadn’t been seen on the West Side in eons.
So a packed house at the United Center was buzzing late in the fourth quarter Saturday night when the Bulls looked to pull off an encore in the waning moments against the Dallas Mavericks.
Would Bulls TV analyst Stacey King be shouting, “I’m coming to join you, Elizabeth” once again?
Elizabeth, as it turned out, would have to sit this one out. King would not be joining her.
A 120-119 loss to the Mavericks brought the red-hot Bulls back to earth, at least temporarily, and left them tied with the Miami Heat in ninth place in the Eastern Conference. They are 2½ games behind the Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks, who are in a virtual tie for the No. 7 play-in spot, with eight games remaining.
Matas Buzelis led the Bulls with 28 points while sinking 5 of 7 3s, while Coby White and Nikola Vučević chipped in with 25 apiece.
“I felt like we were all a step behind today for some reason,” Buzelis said. “We battled back, of course. We always do that. But if we start well and execute in the beginning, I don’t think anyone can beat us.”
The Bulls trimmed a late 11-point deficit in a flash, pulling to within three on Buzelis’s 3-pointer with 52 seconds remaining. After Spencer Dinwiddie’s finger roll, White answered to make it a 3-point game again with 32 seconds to play, and after Dinwiddie missed a hook, the Bulls had the ball and 10 seconds left to try to make lightning strike twice.
Vučević was fouled intentionally and sank one of two free throws with 8.6 seconds left to make it a 118-116 game. But Klay Thompson was fouled immediately and hit both free-throw attempts to up the lead to four, effectively ending any thoughts of another last-second comeback. Vučević’s 3 with 0.2 seconds left was a nice touch, but this was not the Bulls’ night.
They finished with 19 turnovers, while Giddey managed only 8 points on 3-for-12 shooting, including 0-for-3 on 3s.
Did the aftereffect of Thursday’s emotional win factor in?
“I don’t know how much it was connected,” Vučević said. “I just don’t think we had the same energy, the same focus. I don’t know if it had to do with the (Lakers) game. We did talk about it — putting the prior one behind us and focusing on tonight. We just didn’t have the same spark.”
Coach Billy Donovan admitted before the game that he was a bit concerned about how the Bulls would respond after such a wild win over LeBron James and the Lakers, a game that garnered national attention with a viral video of the final 12 seconds. All of a sudden the Bulls were a team that people were starting to notice.
“When you’re a team throughout the course of the season, which has been all year long really on the outside looking in at a playoff scene, (not) being in the top six and then going through what we went through at the trade deadline, there hasn’t been a lot of (media) attention,” Donovan said. “The attention has been on a lot of other teams, and maybe a lot of other teams should have maybe even more notoriety or coverage.
“But because of the Lakers and LeBron’s stature in this game, what he’s done throughout his career, and you talk the trade with (Luka) Dončić coming in, there’s certainly a huge and large following with them, so when the game happens against a team like that with those two players, certainly there’s going to be a lot more focus on that game.
“For our guys emotionally, we’ve got to be able to come back, basically 48 hours later, and play again. They’ve got to be able to handle the emotion. That’s another part of the growth we’ve got to make as a team. And sometimes those playoff games can be really really emotional from one game to the next and you’ve got to be able to flush those games and be able to refocus and raise your energy level and not have it zapped.”
But zapped it was, and now the road only gets harder for the Bulls (33-41). They travel to Oklahoma City on Monday to take on the Thunder (62-12), the top seed in the West with the best record in the NBA. It will be a sweet homecoming for Giddey and a reunion for Bulls players with former teammate Alex Caruso.
The Cliffs Notes version of Giddey’s ending in OKC began with Thunder coach Mark Daigneault removing him from the starting lineup last year before Game 5 of their second-round playoff series against the Mavericks, saying he thought “it was the appropriate time” to get the 21-year-old out and into more of a “playmaking” role with the second unit.
The Thunder, the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history, were upset by the Mavs in six games. Giddey shot 43% in the series and went 3-for-16 (19%) from 3-point range. That poor showing led to the offseason trade of Giddey for Caruso, one of the Bulls’ most popular players with both fans and teammates.
“No player wants to be in the position where you’re the one that’s getting adjusted to in the playoffs,” Giddey recently said of the demotion in OKC. “That was a tough pill for me to swallow, but it was probably what I needed at that point of my career. It’s better to learn that lesson as you get deeper into your career.
“Looking back in hindsight, it was probably the best thing for me. Most of the time you feel like, ‘Oh, you don’t want to go through that. But … they made the right decision in what they did, in terms of the playoffs, that whole series, and matchup-wise they did it for the right reasons. I don’t ever look back in anger or whatever towards OKC. I had nothing but great things to say about OKC.”
But was it hard to take?
“Yeah, but irrespective of where I played, whether it was OKC or the national team, that’s going to hurt any player,” he said. “So it wasn’t just a ‘me’ thing. It was OKC’s thing. They did the right thing, and Mark is an incredible coach and made adjustments accordingly.
“We were down in that series so we needed to come back, so I don’t look back at it like they did the wrong thing or they messed me up or anything like that. They made the right decision and I tried to be the best teammate I could for the rest of that series and help them win.”
That didn’t happen, and now the Thunder are poised for a longer run as the top seed in the league, while the Bulls are fighting for a better play-in spot and hopefully at least one game at the United Center.
Judging the Giddey-Caruso trade is hazardous because both players are valuable to their teams for diverse reasons. Caruso has been coming off the bench, starting only two games for OKC, while his minutes have been reduced from 28.7 minutes per game last season to 19.3 with the Thunder. But he’s still providing great defense and energy, while Giddey has been the spark the Bulls desperately needed after the trade of Zach LaVine to the Sacramento Kings in February forced Giddey into a bigger offensive role.
Since the All-Star break he has averaged nearly a triple double with 23 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists per game entering Saturday.
“He’s averaging a triple-double, and he can score, he can pass and he can help you with rebounds, his ability to run the pick and roll, and he has scorers around him so he can use those guys (because) he knows how to find them,” Mavs coach Jason Kidd said. “And then he’s shooting the 3 at a very high clip. He’s playing at a very high level. You can see that he’s comfortable, you can see that with the excitement at the end of the Lakers game. I think he’s comfortable playing there in Chicago.”
It should be an emotional night for Giddey, who was also a fan favorite in OKC. He’s coming back with a chip on his shoulder and a newfound reputation as a clutch player in Chicago.
“I’m sure he’ll be motivated,” Vučević said. “A special game for him. He got drafted there and put some years in there. It’ll be fun. They’re the best team in the league now and it’ll be great for us to see A.C. as well. … One of my favorite teammates, a great guy to play with and works his butt off every night.”
Originally Published: March 29, 2025 at 11:35 PM CDT
