Once again, Bulls fail to slow down Bucks
DeMar DeRozan changed his shoes at halftime and they may have helped him shoot a little better in the second half at Milwaukee.
But neither pair of shoes ever saw the foul line Tuesday. For the first time all season, DeRozan didn't attempt a free throw in a game. His frustration epitomized the Bulls night, as they fell behind late in the first quarter and lost 126-98 at Fiserv Forum.
The Bulls fell to 0-16 this season against the top three teams in each conference. They'll get two more chances to get on the board, with home games against Miami and Milwaukee remaining.
"At some point, we've got to get tired of getting our butt kicked like this and that switch has to flip of understand, 'All right, enough is enough,'" DeRozan said. "Now it's time to turn it around and show that desperation."
After falling behind by 26 points, the Bulls got within 10 early in the third quarter and has chances to close it gap to single digits. But eventually the Bucks turned the faucet back on and pulled away again.
Milwaukee shot 61% over the full game and won the outrebounds 53-33. The Bulls faced some tough circumstances, playing the second leg of back-to-back games against a rested Bucks squad. But Milwaukee was missing one of its main players, Khris Middleton, out with left wrist soreness.
"I thought they made some really tough shots," Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. "Shots we would want them to take, they made. I think it was a night when they really had it going, credit to them and it was a night that we just didn't shoot the ball particularly well."
Nikola Vucevic led the Bulls with 22 points, while Zach LaVine and DeRozan scored 21 each, but the Bulls didn't get much from their supporting cast. No one else scored more than 5 points until the garbage time arrived.
Things started out well for the Bulls. Thanks in part to Vucevic going 3-for-3 from 3-point range, the score was tied 20-20 with 3:33 left in the opening quarter. But when Vucevic, Alex Caruso and Javonte Green checked out, the game went south in a big hurry.
The Bucks finished the first quarter with a 13-0 run, then kept pouring it on and eventually led 59-33 with 2:50 left in the first half.
"It's frustrating, because I think we know how good we can be when we play at our best, play at a high level," Caruso said. "To not go out there and do it a couple times in a row, it's just frustrating."
Milwaukee was whistled for just 4 fouls in the first half and the Bulls didn't go to the free-throw line until there were 35.8 seconds left before halftime when LaVine finally knocked down a pair. At that point, the Bucks led in free-throw attempts 9-0.
"The thing that was amazing to me was there were only 2 defensive fouls called against them in 24 minutes," Donovan said. "I've never heard of that, I've never seen that before ever. I felt like we were trying to go downhill, I felt like we were trying to get to the basket. The free-throw discrepancy, certainly in the first half, created a little bit of a hole for us."
Donovan pointed to DeRozan being in position to take a charge against Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo about four minutes into the game. The play ended up being a Milwaukee turnover, but Antetokounmpo would have had his second foul if a charge was called.
DeRozan eventually got a technical foul for complaining about the lack of calls. The final tally of free-throw attempts was 20-13 in favor of the Bucks.
"That was my whole frustration," DeRozan said. "Without a doubt, I got hit a few times on a couple jump shots. Same old thing, over and over. From my opinion, you get paid to play at a high level, the refs get paid to ref at a high level. I'm consistently hearing you miss something, you miss something, it's unacceptable."
This was just the start of a five-game road trip, but the next four opponents all have worse records than the Bulls.
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