Bulls snap 11-game skid by routing Bucks

With 7:19 left in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game against the Bucks, Josh Giddey drove from the right and sent a lob pass up into the air for teammate Nick Richards. Richards grabbed the ball with one hand and slammed it down to give the Bulls a 16-point lead, igniting the announced crowd of 20,749.

The moment seemed to be cathartic for the Bulls, who snapped an 11-game losing streak with a 120-97 win over Milwaukee.

“I know it’s been frustrating for [the players], I know I’m in the locker room after a game and after a loss they feel like they’re working hard, they’re trying hard,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “I’ve never had a problem with their effort at all – it’s just been more [of] the turnovers, trying to learn a new system, new style, new teammates, all of that stuff.

“To see them stick with it for a whole month like this and to go through the struggles of that, I just appreciate the way they’ve stayed together and just continued to try to come back in each day to work to get better.”

Donovan insisted that he saw growth during the struggles of a winless February. On Sunday, he also saw the Bulls put together a 27-0 run spanning the last 1:12 of the third quarter and first 5:59 of the fourth, turning what had been a 14-point deficit into a 13-point lead.

Giddey said he didn’t know how long the run was until he was told after the game.

“It felt good,” Giddey said. “It felt like we were making them take a lot of tough shots. NBA players are good, so they’re going to make tough shots but they went through a stretch where they couldn’t really hit anything.”

The run was part of a dominant second half when the Bulls held Milwaukee to only 31 points, including just eight in the fourth quarter.

“I’m proud of our guys,” said Matas Buzelis, who had 20 points and credited the Bulls’ attention to detail as a difference-maker Sunday. “We played really hard and we figured it out a little bit. I’m proud of everybody.”

Undoubtedly, the Bulls were aided by the continued absence of Giannis Antetokounmpo, who didn't play due to a right calf strain but sat on Milwaukee’s bench. The Bucks also helped the Bulls as Giddey said, shooting 36.8% from the floor.

Regardless of the reasons, the Bulls were glad to earn their first win since a Jan. 31 victory over Miami.

“Any time you go on a losing streak like that, every game becomes more and more desperate,” Giddey said. “You, as a group, want to try to snap that streak as quickly as you can. Obviously, it dragged out to 11, which none of us would have wanted.

The month of February saw a lot of events the Bulls would have wanted to avoid.

Out the door went Nikola Vucevic, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu. The Bulls went from a team playing for a spot in the play-in to one looking at next season and beyond, seemingly hoping to acquire as many second-round picks and guards as possible.

On the first day of March, Donovan is working with a group that’s vastly different from the one he led in late January. Donovan, his staff and the players are working to build chemistry on the fly on a team with two cornerstones and little else guaranteed to be in Chicago next season.

“It is what it is, so to speak,” Donovan said. “You’ve got to move forward.”

On Sunday, the group was able to move forward with a win.