White's career night leads Bulls to victory over Magic |
Dustin Riese
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- Friday, March 07 2025
ORLANDO - During this stretch where the Chicago Bulls (25-38) have gone just 3-9, there have been plenty of positives to take away, even if the wins aren't there. For starters, a lot of the new faces, such as Tre Jones, Zach Collins, and Kevin Huerter, continue to step up, which has to be promising heading into next season.
You then have to look at the overall body of work from this team. Yes, a loss is a loss, but they have been in so many games until the end only to run out of gas late. That is what happens when you are a short-handed team figuring out how to win, but no one is going to knock the Bulls for never giving up. That was again the case against the Orlando Magic (29-35) at the Kia Center on Thursday as the Chicago Bulls had to battle back from a pair of 10-point second-half deficits to pick up the 125-123 win. Coby White is the reason behind all that, as he had a career night in this one. Despite getting off to a slow start in the first quarter, White exploded as the game continued, especially in the second half. He wound up leading all scorers with a career-high 44 points and did so by knocking down 16 of 28 shots. That included seven of the Bulls 15 triples as White found open looks and got to the bucket at will in the fourth quarter. However, it wasn't his offense that won this game for Chicago, but more so his defense, as he made a great play on a ball heading out of bounds late in the game to give the ball to his team before cashing in on the other end. With Nickola Vucevic, Lonzo Ball, Ayo Dosunmu, and Patrick Williams all out with injuries, the Bulls are an extremely short-handed club right now and could be for the foreseeable future. Fortunately for them, Josh Giddey returned to the lineup after being a late scratch on Tuesday and finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds to keep his strong stretch of play going. Giddey also managed to dish out nine assists to come within one assist shy of a triple-double. Whenever you lose players due to injuries, it forces other players to step up, and Jones certainly stepped up in place of Ball. Jones made just his second start with the Bulls, showed he has what it takes to remain the starter, and added 20 points in 30 minutes. Throw in 13 from Kevin Huerter off the bench and 11 from Matas Buzelis, who had the hot hand early, and the Bulls offense is continuing to make promising strides throughout the second half of the season. For whatever reason, the Magic have taken massive steps back this season, but they are still in play in contention. That is all you can ask for this late in the year, but for a team that entered Thursday as the second-best defensive team, you would like to see the wins start to follow. Things looked good for Orlando, especially in the third, as the Magic built their lead to double digits. Paolo Banchero and Cole Anthony contributed to that, as they led the Magic with 20 points. Banchero also picked up nine rebounds in the game, but it was a missed opportunity late, as the Magic didn't take advantage of the Bulls' lack of size in the closing minutes. To go with them came three more strong performances, all coming from the Magic starting lineup. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had the Magic's hot hand throughout the first three quarters but did manage to cool off down the stretch. He still finished the game with 19 points on a near-perfect 8-10 from the field. Franz Wagner managed to chip in with 18 points, while Wendell Carter Jr. added 17 points and five rebounds to give the Magic terrific production across the board. Despite their entire starting lineup playing well, the Magic simply couldn't put the Bulls away, and when you let a team like that hang around, bad things tend to happen. Depending on what happens from here on out, these two teams could wind up playing each other in play-in games, and who knows how things will turn out in that scenario. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWoVjLOp8BU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtmdeLgLcB0&t=147s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxMmzxcKmPU
