The 43rd and final loss of the Chicago Bulls season ended with a familiar sight — a haphazard crumbling under pressure.
It should have been an even playing field in the play-in showdown Friday. Both teams had a finalist for Clutch Player of the Year: DeMar DeRozan for the Bulls, Jimmy Butler for the Miami Heat. But despite a desperate effort from DeRozan — who finished with 26 points — Butler came alive against his former team in the fourth quarter of a 102-91 Heat win.
Butler made back-to-back layups to carve the Bulls’ lead to two points with less than seven minutes remaining and scored 13 of his 31 points in the quarter to advance the Heat to the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year.
The Heat ended the game on a 15-1 run, stamping out the Bulls’ hopes of earning the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference despite finishing two games below .500.
“This one hurt. It shouldn’t have ended like that,” DeRozan said. “We gave ourselves the opportunity to win a game. We were up. We just can’t make the mistakes that we made, especially in a game like this. We’re sitting in our reality now with nothing to do.”
The Heat advanced to face the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks.
The difference between a win and a loss for the Bulls came down to their highest-paid player: Zach LaVine.
In their play-in win Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors, LaVine was every ounce of the maximum-contract star that the Bulls needed him to be, dropping 30 of his 39 points in an indomitable second half to power a 19-point comeback for a 109-105 win. But in Miami, LaVine’s inconsistencies were on full display.
He shot 6-for-21 overall and 0-for-6 on 3-pointers for 15 points. LaVine didn’t show up in the final stretch when the Bulls needed him most, coughing up a turnover and missing all five of his shots in the final five minutes.
“I just didn’t shoot the ball well,” LaVine said. “It was a lot of good shots that normally go in, and it just sucks knowing that we were so close. If I make a couple of those, it could’ve been the tipping point, so it hurts a lot.”
The game stalled into a defensive grind early as neither team shot the ball proficiently. The Heat missed layups and wide-open midrange shots to finish 41% from the field. The Bulls also struggled, shooting 43.9%.
Hickory Hills and DePaul product Max Strus kept the Heat afloat in the first half, scorching the Bulls for four 3-pointers to score the Heat’s first 12 points. Strus made his seventh 3-pointer to put the Heat up 96-91 with 1:14 remaining, then made three free throws after drawing a foul on a 3-point attempt with 40.7 seconds remaining. Strus went 7-for-12 from 3-point range and finished with 31 points.
Alex Caruso buoyed the stagnant Bulls offense in the first half, netting four 3-pointers, and scored a season-high 16 points. Coby White scored 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting overall and 4-for-6 shooting on 3 pointers, including three in the fourth quarter. Andre Drummond also provided a crucial boost off the bench, logging six points and eight rebounds in 10 minutes.
But those contributions weren’t enough to outweigh the nagging weaknesses that kept the Bulls underwater throughout this disappointing season: stagnant scoring, poor 3-point shooting and a lack of assertiveness in the final minutes of a must-win game.
“It has to hurt,” LaVine said. “If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not in the right business. We really did try to sneak it in after having a season where we were not playing up to our potential. We started to catch a little momentum, but not enough.”
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