The Chicago Bulls lost their second straight game (fifth loss in the last seven) on Friday night in Atlanta. The 102-93 final score wasn’t indicative of how bad the Bulls were, as Chicago rallied from a 34-point second half deficit to make the game competitive.
As a team the Bulls shot 42 percent from the field (25 percent from three) and had 24 turnovers to 18 assists in Atlanta. After the game, the Bulls’ star players were not pleased with the performance that led to Chicago dropping to two games below .500.
Dwyane Wade took to Twitter to apologize to the team’s fan, calling the team’s performance “awful.”
That performance was AWFUL!!! I apologize to all the Chicago fans and Wade fans.
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) January 21, 2017
Wade wasn’t alone in being disappointed with the Bulls effort in Atlanta, as Jimmy Butler was blunt when asked about the team’s play by reporters.
Jimmy Butler on #Bulls' performance: "It's terrible basketball."
— Chris Kuc (@ChrisKuc) January 21, 2017
“It’s so disappointing because the way we practice isn’t the way that we play in the game,” Butler continued to reporters, per ESPN’s Nick Friedell. “Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. Starting from me going all the way down the line, we’ve got to be better as a whole, as a team. Otherwise, we’re just going to keep getting our asses beat. It’s bad.”
Butler isn’t wrong. The Bulls looked really bad in Atlanta, which has been the case for the better part of two weeks. Over the last seven games, Chicago’s offense has stalled out with an offensive rating of 99.4 and the defense hasn’t been much better, with a defensive rating of 106.4. After that 2-5 stretch, the Bulls now find themselves tied with the Bucks in the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, 10.5 games behind the Cavs.
It’s clear that the stars of the team aren’t pleased with the level of play right now, but we’ll have to wait and see if they can make the improvements needed to get out of this recent tailspin.
