DENVER — The Chicago Bulls were exhausted.
They couldn’t hide it. Less than 21 hours had passed since the final buzzer sounded on a demoralizing double-overtime loss to the Utah Jazz. The starters were gassed. Their legs were gone before they started. The team landed in Denver already prepared to hand the bulk of the game over to the bench.
But the Bulls also needed a win. Badly. Five losses in a row had piled up into a heap of frustration, the kind that seeped deep into the locker room. Losing is tiring in its own way. It weighs on a team, growing exponentially heavier.
In an improbable 130-127 win over the Denver Nuggets on Monday night, one form of exhaustion won out over the other.
“We needed to get back in the win column,” guard Jevon Carter said. “Super bad.”
The formula for success was as simple — and grueling — as it has been all season. The Bulls crashed the boards and earned second chances and pounded the ball into the paint. Jalen Smith scraped and clawed at Nikola Jokić, drawing boos and jeers from the Denver crowd as he frustrated the three-time MVP. Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips stood tall when the Nuggets had an advantage in transition, leaping and swatting at shots until they finally batted the ball back into Bulls hands.
The Nuggets threw plenty of finishers in the fourth quarter. That’s a given with players such as Jokić and Jamal Murray, who racked up a combined 70 points. But unlike past losses to behemoth stars, the Bulls had counters of their own — clutch 3-pointers from Nikola Vučević and Kevin Huerter, a vicious dunk in transition from Ayo Dosunmu.
The Bulls don’t always make sense. They lose to bottom-tier teams. They let opponents blow by them off the dribble and rip off double-digit runs with abandon.
But the thing about this version of the Bulls is they don’t fade away. They’re in more games than they’re not. They’ve finished nine of their 13 games this season in clutch situations — within five points with less than five minutes remaining — and won five of them. With the skid snapped, the Bulls are back above .500 at 7-6. For now, that speaks loudly enough.
The Bulls don’t need to make sense. They just need to keep winning.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
1. Backed by the bench.
The Bulls outlasted the Nuggets by leaning heavily on their bench, which entered the game with a higher charge after barely factoring in overtime minutes Sunday. The Bulls bench outscored the Nuggets bench 66-9, while all five Bulls starters registered a negative plus-minus.
That makes sense, of course, when an opposing team’s starting lineup includes Jokić, Murray and Aaron Gordon. The Nuggets were less deep than normal due to the injury absence of Christian Braun, which placed a heavier strain on their backcourt reserves.
The Bulls bench built the lead to 18 points in the second quarter. It took the Nuggets starters just under five minutes to completely wipe away that advantage, and Denver carried a one-point advantage into the second half after closing the second quarter on a 24-8 run.
But the bench continuously stood up against combinations of Nuggets stars, giving the Bulls starters just enough of a break to close out the game in the clutch.
Smith led the initial effort off the bench, tallying 16 points and eight rebounds while shouldering hefty minutes against Jokić. Smith found success early with his 3-point shot, but it was his ability to match up with Jokić that changed the course of the game as coach Billy Donovan gave the bench longer rotations against the Denver starters.
The Bulls suffered a blow in the third quarter when Smith injured his shoulder attempting to reach in against Jokić, who responded by hooking the Bulls center’s arm and tossing him to the ground to draw a foul. Smith exited and returned to play less than three minutes the rest of the game.
Dosunmu led the bench scoring with 21 points on an efficient shooting night, going 7 of 8 from the field and 4 of 5 from the free-throw line. Donovan has opted to bring Dosunmu off the bench all season despite extensive injuries to the backcourt, preferring to use him as a catalyst for the second unit.
2. Hot and cold behind the arc.
In the first half it seemed the Bulls could beat the Nuggets on shooting alone.
The Bulls went 7 of 14 behind the 3-point arc in the half, including a pair apiece from Matas Buzelis and Carter. The Bulls were especially prolific from above the break, hitting five of their 3-pointers in the first quarter from well above the free-throw line.
That shooting crashed back down to earth in the second half, when the Bulls shot 7 of 27 from deep. Huerter and Carter were the only Bulls immune to the second-half cool-off, combining for five of the team’s seven 3s in the half.
3. Coby White sat out.
The Bulls welcomed the return of White in Sunday’s loss to the Jazz after he missed the first 11 games with a calf strain. The guard blew past his 24-minute restriction in his season debut and was summarily sidelined for Monday’s second half of a back-to-back.
Guard Tre Jones also missed Monday’s game with a left ankle injury. Although the Bulls didn’t have a shootaround Monday morning, Jones went through a workout on his own in an attempt to be cleared for the game. The Bulls remain hopeful he might be available for the final game of the trip Wednesday in Portland.
Center Zach Collins is beginning to ramp up after undergoing surgery for a fractured left wrist. Collins will need to rebuild significant mobility and strength in his wrist before he is cleared to play.
Donovan said he believes Collins could begin practicing next week after the Bulls complete a home back-to-back against the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards, although he admitted that’s an optimistic timeline for the center’s recovery.
