DeMar DeRozan’s late-game heroics have become almost commonplace for the Chicago Bulls. But in Wednesday’s 114-108 road win over the Detroit Pistons, the Bulls needed their star forward off the court as much as on it.
The Bulls needed a win, but they weren’t playing like it. The defense was sluggish and shooting was frigid. DeRozan is known for his relative calm on the bench, preferring to pull teammates aside for quick one-on-ones rather than hyping up his team.
But in the third quarter at Little Caesars Arena, he joined Tristan Thompson and Zach LaVine on the sideline in delivering an impassioned plea: Snap out of it.
DeRozan finished with 43 points, 23 in the fourth quarter. But it was the Bulls defense — which limited the Pistons to 17 points on 6-for-20 shooting in the final quarter — that put an end to the team’s five-game losing streak.
“We’ve got to play like that from the gate,” DeRozan said. “We’ve got to stop putting ourselves in a hole and working that much harder to get back in games and win games. We showed we could do it. We should do it out of the gate.”
The game should have afforded the Bulls (40-26) a much-needed chance to breathe. The Pistons (18-48) have the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference. Center Nikola Vučević was cleared shortly before tipoff after missing the last game with a hamstring injury, creating a beneficial size mismatch for the Bulls in the paint.
And the Bulls simply needed the win. Five straight losses had shaken their confidence, and they couldn’t afford to slip any lower in the East standings. Nothing was easy about their first win in nearly two weeks, but the result brought relief as the Bulls ended their longest losing streak of the season.
“Tonight was definitely a desperate night for us to get a win,” DeRozan said. “We all kind of got on each other in that third quarter to pick it up, and we did.”
Some losing teams are still competitive in at least one aspect of their game. On paper, the Pistons aren’t one of those teams. They dwell on the bottom rungs on both ends of the court (25th in the NBA in defense, 28th in offense) and they started a diminished lineup without the injured Isaiah Stewart.
But the Pistons had won six of eight heading into Wednesday’s game, riding a wave of confidence sparked by rookie guard Cade Cunningham. They took advantage of the inconsistent Bulls defense, going on a 14-2 run in the second quarter to take a seven-point lead.
For two quarters, the Bulls were sluggish to react each time the Pistons brought up the ball. They were a step late when players drove to the rim, allowing too much time for Cunningham and others to bulldoze their way through wide-open space.
On offense, the Bulls seemed unfocused. Coby White scrambled to dribble up the court in transition, only to have his pocket picked for a transition layup. Ayo Dosunmu fumbled the ball off his chest and into an opponent’s arms. DeRozan and LaVine missed block-out assignments to give up easy put-backs.
It wasn’t only the Pistons starters scorching the Bulls — their bench finished with 43 points, led by Kelly Olynyk (12), Hamidou Diallo (10) and Saben Lee (10).
It took those huddle conversations led by DeRozan, LaVine and Thompson to break the Bulls out of their stupor.
“They were just going by us, forcing rotations, and when we had rotational block-outs, we didn’t come up with rebounds,” coach Billy Donovan said. “In the fourth quarter, it looked like a level of desperation with the way we were playing. That was good to see.”
Despite growing pains in the second and third quarters, the game showcased what can work for the Bulls in the final stretch of the regular season.
The offense fired most effectively when LaVine and DeRozan slashed toward the rim. Quick ball movement allowed the Bulls to batter the Pistons with Vučević, who utilized his size advantage to finish with 21 points despite being limited to six-minute stretches.
The Bulls scored 60 of their 114 points in the paint, helping them absorb a 3-for-15 night from behind the 3-point line. They also recorded double-digit steals (13) for the first time in nearly two months, leading to 13 points in transition and returning an edge to the defense even as Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball remain sidelined.
The game also served as another reminder of DeRozan’s ability to turn a game on its heel. With the game on the line, he requested to return to the court several minutes before his typical rotation. He found the most success taking the ball directly at Cunningham, so Donovan drew up a succession of plays for DeRozan to pound the ball at the rookie in the final minutes.
DeRozan’s readiness for such close-game moments — and the Bulls’ ability to feed their star even when teams blitz him defensively — is a key to the remainder of the regular season.
“At this point of the season, every game matters,” he said. “If I have to play 48 (minutes), I’m willing to play 48 because everything matters. There’s no time for rest.
“We’ve got 16 games left, it’s crazy. It feels like we just started. Every one of these games is critical.”
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