An excellent and dominating performance by the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday saw visiting Dallas Mavericks lose by ten points. Final score Dallas 107 – 117 Chicago. With this win, the Bulls now have eight victories in eleven games and the fans have plenty to look forward to this season.
The game started as expected when two good basketball teams face each other. The first quarter was highly contested and the Mavericks managed to eke out a one point lead by the start of the second. This is when the Bulls got hot, taking a 7-point lead with them to the locker room at half time. Chicago came out strong again in the third, adding 8 points to their lead to open the final quarter of the game. With such a large surplus, it was natural that the Bulls would drop off a bit in the final 15 minutes of the game, but the Mavericks failed to stage any sort of comeback and Chicago finished off the game with 10 points over their Western Conference opponents.
While Lonzo Ball and Zach LaVine came out big int he game, a total of five Bulls players ended the night with double digit tallies. LaVine led Chicago’s top scorers on Wednesday, netting 23 points, but Ball was best overall, scoring 21 points with 6 assists and 6 rebounds. Vucevic put in 18 in the basket with 10 rebounds and DeRozan was good for 17 points with 6 assists and 7 rebounds. Alex Caruso had 16 points at United Center and fought for 7 steals.
Meanwhile both Porzingis and Doncic put in work for Dallas, with 22 and 20 points respectively, but it was hardly enough to overcome a strong performance by the Bulls throughout the court.
“The Bulls are back, man,” Tim Hardaway Jr. (21 points) was quoted after the game. And indeed this may be true. Chicago is sitting pretty at the second spot in the Eastern, holding the same 8-3 record as the leaders Wizards, only due to fewer conference games so far int he season. The real test will be tomorrow, however, when the Bulls begin their 5-game travel streak with a visit to Western Conference leaders Golden State.
