Cam Thomas and the rest of his Nets teammates combined for 25 three-pointers in shooting the Bulls into trouble in the standings.
Peter K. Afriyie/AP
NEW YORK – DeMar DeRozan glanced up at the scoreboard after the Coby White foul.
Not exactly the sight the Bulls veteran wanted to see.
Down 11 with 1:51 left.
Another one slipping away, another night wasted.
But that’s where Bulls basketball is as a whole these days: Nights wasted.
Thanks to a 125-108 loss to a 29-win Brooklyn Nets team that had the Cancun vacation planned weeks ago, the Bulls are now just ½-game up on idle Atlanta for the No. 10 seed and final play-in spot.
“We got eight left? We got eight left,” DeRozan said afterward, answering his own question about the rest of the season. “Can’t depend on anyone else to win or lose. Got to let this one feel how it’s supposed to feel, use that as motivation, and respond the right way.
“This game is over and done with, but you can use that frustration, use it as motivation to understand, one not to drop, and two, just get back to playing basketball. Move on from there.”
And therein lies the frustration with this team.
They can lose to a team like Washington, feel like dead squad walking, but then get up for a playoff-bound Indiana team and blow them out of the gym.
Then Friday hit and hit hard, as the Nets shot 25-of-44 (56.8%) from three-point range, including a ridiculous 9-of-11 from long range in the fourth quarter. A lack of Bulls defense closing out? Not at all. In fact, they actually forced the home team into some tightly contested threes. The problem was because the Bulls had some rotation breakdowns on the three-pointer in the first half and third quarter, Brooklyn shooters got comfortable.
That’s all they needed.
“Whether it was rotations or closeouts just a little bit late, not what they needed to be, and sometimes you allow a team to make a few shots and then the basket becomes a lot bigger,” coach Billy Donovan said. “They shot an incredible percentage in the second half (75%). Some of them were highly contested, but you also have to look at the early part of the third quarter when they started making a few and they found a rhythm. Generally, when that happens, guys at this level it doesn’t make a difference.”
That’s how a two-point game with just over 10 minutes left in the fourth turned into a blowout.
After a Dalen Terry lay-up, three of the next four shots Brooklyn took were from 26 feet and out, and all of them connected. By the time Dennis Schroder hit a bomb with 6:48 left, a two-point game was up to six and counting.
Another Schroder three, followed by a Mikal Bridges getting into the act and the lead was 10.
There was no putting the toothpaste back in the tube at that point.
“They made shots, they made contested ones, they made ones off the dribble,” guard Coby White said of the onslaught they faced. “Hats off to them. It’s hard to beat a team if they’re making 25 threes. I don’t know the math on that, what is that 75 (points) … some were due to us having lapses, but they hit some tough ones. They got hot.”
Not the first time the Nets have given the Bulls (35-39) problems this season, as they have now swept the season series winning all three games.
It’s up to the Bulls to shake this latest one off and keep grinding, doing everything they can to stay in front of the surging Hawks.
“There’s always a response,” DeRozan said. “But we’re getting down to the point where it’s going to be one-and-done. We gotta treat these games like that.”