The Chicago Bulls had their first home game in 16 days Wednesday night as they dropped a 96-90 contest to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Bulls played the Lakers on there recent west coast road trip and beat them on their home court 118-100 on November 17th. The Lakers played Wednesday night without Nick Young a.k.a. Swaggy P. as he’s going to miss 2 to 4 weeks with a right calf injury.
The Lakers scored the first 4 points of the game, but it was really the Bulls who control the 1st quarter. The Lakers actually managed to score just 13 more points in the quarter as the Bulls jumped out to a 11-point lead 28 to 17 after one quarter.
The Lakers began to cut into the Bulls lead right at the start of the 2nd quarter. After a 17 to 7 run by Los Angeles the Bulls lead was down to 1-point at 35 to 34. The Bulls did rebuild there lead to 6 at 42-36, but the Lakers made another run and the game went into halftime tied at 47 apiece.
Through the 3rd quarter the Bulls worked to build a lead. After Nikola Mirotic hit a lay up with 3:21 left in the quarter the Bulls had there biggest lead of the quarter at 65-57. The Lakers spent those final three plus minutes cutting into the Bulls lead outscoring Chicago 13-8 to end the quarter at 73-70 Chicago.
The 4th quarter started with another Mirotic basket to give the Bulls a 5-point lead, but the Lakers scored 8 of the games next 13 points and the game was tied at 78 apiece. The teams traded the lead three times, but then the Bulls where able to take a 3-point lead at 85-82 with 6:24 left to play. The Lakers quickly evened the game and built there own 3-point lead at 90-87, but a Jimmy Butler 3-pointer tied the game at 90. Of course those where the Bulls last points of the game while the Lakers had a field goal and then went 4 of 6 from the free throw line to win the game 96-90.
The Lakers where led in scoring by Jordan Clarkson and louis Williams who each came off the bench to score 18 points. Williams also led the team in assists with 5. Julius Randle scored 13 points and grabbed a game high 20 rebounds. Larry Nance Jr. had a double-double off the Lakers bench scoring 12 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Former Bull Luol Deng also scored in double figures with 10 points.
The Bulls shot just 32 of 91 (35.2%) from the field which included going 4 for 21 (19%) from behind the 3-point line. Even with a rough shooting night Jimmy Butler was the games high scorer with 22 points. Dwayne Wade had 17 points while Rajon Rondo had 14 points. Wade and Rondo where the game leaders in assists with 6 each Taj Gibson posted a double-double with 11 points and a team high 10 rebounds and Robin Lopez scored 10 points.
The win gets the Lakers back to .500 at 10-10 on the season. This was the 2nd game of a 4 game road trip for the Lakers. They’ll get a day off before going to Toronto to face the 12-6 Raptors. The loss drops the Bulls to 10-7 on the season. The Bulls will also get a day off before they host the Eastern Conference leading Cleveland Cavaliers (13-3) on Friday night.
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