The Chicago Bulls (15-9) lost in heart-breaking fashion to the Detroit Pistons (16-12) in quadruple overtime 147-144 on Friday night. This game had an atmosphere similar to a playoff game in April, and it is only December. Jimmy Butler scored a career-high 43 points, Derrick Rose had a season-high 34, and Pau Gasol scored 30 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.
Ideally, it would have been great had the Bulls won this game. All the Bulls’ players were disappointed in the result considering how much basketball was played. There are no moral victories in sports, but this game could be the beginning of what the Bulls’ brass envisioned when they hired head coach Fred Hoiberg.
Rose’s aggression
Rose took 34 shots against the Pistons. Initially, this seems alarming because he scored 34 points off 34 shots, but he finally displayed his much needed aggression. It seems like Rose picks and chooses which games to assert his dominance, and understandably because of his injury history, most recently his fractured orbital. If Rose can play aggressively more consistently, this team is much more competitive. Butler and Gasol cannot carry the offensive load each and every night. If the quadruple overtime loss was any indication, Rose will be more aggressive more often.
Butler is clutch
Last season, Butler proved that he can be counted on to score with consistency. This season, he has improved his play late in games when the Bulls need a bucket. Butler has made some big shots this season, but he made a number of clutch buckets in the overtime periods against Detroit. Essentially, Rose and Butler alternated both running the pick and roll with Gasol and taking the big shots. There is a reason why Stacey King says “Jimmy ‘G’ Buckets, and the ‘G’ stands for ‘gets.’”
This loss snapped the Bulls’ four game winning streak, but this could be a wake up call for this team. There are 82 games in the regular season, but this loss stings and will not be forgotten.