Are you use to Christmas day being an NBA day? There are five games on the schedule and the third one featured the San Antonio Spurs getting a 119 to 100 win over the Chicago Bulls. San Antonio improves to 25-6 with the win while the Bulls fall to 14-16. This was the Bulls sixth loss in seven games and it’s also the fifth time in those six losses that they’ve been beaten by double digit points.
The Bulls where in trouble right from the start as the Spurs scored the first 8 points of the game as well as scoring 17 of the first 19 points scored in the game. San Antonio seemed to make every shot they took in the quarter as they built the lead to 20 points at 30-10. The Bulls spent the rest of the quarter trying to cut the lead down. By the end of the quarter the lead was down to 11 as the Spurs led 36-25 after one.
After being down by 20 points early in the game the Bulls used the 2nd quarter to try and get themselves back into it. They got very close after jimmy Butler dunk with 1:34 left in the quarter capped a Bulls 24 to 16 run and cut the Spurs lead to just 3 at 52-49. The Spurs where able to add a few more points back onto there lead and they went into halftime up 55-50.
The Bulls went on another run this time of 13 to 8 and believe it or not the game was tied at 63 all. Then Jimmy Butler actually gave the Bulls their first lead of the game when he hit a 3-pointer to make it 70-67 Chicago. The lead didn’t last long as the Spurs went on a 20 to 6 run to end the quarter. San Antonio took a 87-76 lead heading into the 4th quarter.
The Bulls didn’t have another run in them in the final quarter as they could only cut the lead to seven points on two occasions. Once the Spurs got a double digit lead the Bulls could only bring it under that one time. The Spurs lead got to 20 points with just under a minute to play, but a Bills free throw made the final 119-100.
LaMarcus Aldridge was the games leading scorer with 33 points Aldridge went 15 of 20 from the field in the game. Kawhi Leonard added 25 points and grabbed a game high 10 rebounds. Tony Parker scored 13 points and had a game high 8 assists while former Bull Pau Gasol had 10 points.
Dwayne Wade led the Bulls with 24 points and handed out a team high 6 assists. Jimmy Butler had 19 points while Taj Gibson scored 12 points and grabbed a team high 7 rebounds. Nikola Mirotic came off the Bulls bench to score 11 points while Robin Lopez scored 10 points.
The was the start of a three game home stand for San Antonio. The Spurs will get a few days off before hosting the 9-21 Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night. Chicago is in another one of those scheduling quirks like earlier in the season. Chicago is in the middle of a three games in four days stretch as they’ll return home for a game tomorrow against the 15-16 Indiana Pacers.
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