CHICAGO — The Chicago Bulls need heroes.
It goes beyond the price tag of Zach LaVine’s $215.2 million maximum contract. It’s about belief — that this roster is built around two stars who can carry their team across a finish line.
In Sunday’s 125-122 loss to the Indiana Pacers — with the highest stakes on the line — LaVine delivered all he could for the Bulls.
In a back-and-forth slugfest in crunch time, each punch from the Bulls was thrown by LaVine: a jumper to cut the Pacers’ lead to one, a high-arcing 3-pointer to take a 109-108 lead with 5:12 remaining, free throws and jump shots and splashy corner 3s to keep sending the Bulls ahead.
With 49 seconds left, LaVine slanted his body diagonally and dropped a fadeaway jumper to retake a 120-119 lead. And 27 seconds later, he drew a foul on a 3-pointer, sinking two of the three free throws to tie the score at 122.
But LaVine’s 42 points weren’t enough to hold off the inevitable. Tyrese Haliburton delivered a dagger with 2.7 seconds left, splashing a 3-pointer from one step inside the logo.
The Pacers moved into a tie with the Bulls (29-36) for 11th in the Eastern Conference — and claimed the head-to-head tiebreaker with their third win in the season series.
The Bulls’ chase for a spot in the play-in tournament became more desperate. They’re not only two games behind the 10th-place Washington Wizards (30-33) for the final berth, but now they have to pass the Pacers as well over the final 17 games.
At the start, the game felt like an iteration of a repeating nightmare for the Bulls. The Pacers already had pulled off two 20-point comebacks against the Bulls this season — which garnered some levity from the Indiana side.
“The strategy is to get down 20 in the first quarter,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle joked before the game.
They didn’t let it get that far out of hand Sunday before beginning their charge. The Bulls took an early 10-point lead, forcing three turnovers on the first three Pacers possessions.
The Bulls seemed to have absorbed the gravity of the game. Players flew from line to line on defense, swatting at shots and setting traps that forced the Pacers into costly mistakes. But that pressure couldn’t last forever, and the Pacers began to counter after heating up with three consecutive 3-pointers at the end of the first quarter.
A frustrated Bulls coach Billy Donovan took a timeout after the Pacers took a 49-44 lead with 6:28 remaining in the first half, but the Bulls couldn’t quell an outpouring of errors. Patrick Beverley traveled on the ensuing inbound pass out of the timeout, adding to a final tally of 15 turnovers that led to 24 Pacers points.
By the end of the half, the Pacers had completed a 17-point swing to take a 67-60 lead into the locker room.
After that the game turned into an open brawl of back-and-forth action. The lead changed nine times and the score was tied four times.
The Bulls matched blows in the third quarter thanks to a youthful spark from Patrick Williams, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu. They scored 10 points in a 12-5 Bulls run that cut the lead to 87-85 with 2:27 remaining in the quarter.
But the Bulls couldn’t keep their game tidy enough to clinch the win. They coughed up a five-point possession in the final three minutes when Beverley committed a flagrant foul, allowing the Pacers to tally a free throw and two baskets to retake a 117-114 lead.
Despite shooting 60.8% from the field, the Bulls could not match the volume of the Pacers, who took 20 more shots and outscored the Bulls 48-30 behind the 3-point arc.
Javonte Green’s recovery stalls
The Bulls face another setback as forward Javonte Green’s recovery from knee surgery isn’t progressing.
Donovan said before the game that Green has not advanced past straight-ahead sprints and can’t attempt lateral movements without experiencing discomfort in his right knee.
Green underwent an arthroscopic debridement Jan. 10 after falling in and out of the lineup throughout December because of swelling and discomfort in the knee. Before the All-Star break, Donovan affirmed that Green was following the expected recovery timeline, but that changed in the last two weeks as his discomfort persisted.
Time could be running out for Green to return this season. Donovan previously said the Bulls would welcome him back whenever he was available, but Green would need at least two weeks to ramp back up into game form once he is cleared for lateral movements.
With five weeks left in the season, that leaves a very short window for Green to make a meaningful return.
