It was always going to end.
The Chicago Bulls ran out of steam Sunday for their first loss of the season in a 128-113 blowout to the New York Knicks.
Guard Josh Giddey racked up his first triple-double of the season — tallying 23 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists — but even that performance wasn’t enough to outweigh an offensive onslaught from the Knicks. The loss marked Giddey’s eighth triple-double in a Chicago uniform, the third-most in franchise history behind Michael Jordan (28) and Scottie Pippen (15).
The San Antonio Spurs also gave up a loss Sunday, leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder (7-0) as the only remaining unbeaten team in the NBA. Despite the loss, the Bulls remain the top-ranked team in the Eastern Conference in a tie with the Philadelphia 76ers (5-1).
Here are three takeaways from the loss:
1. Reverting to the mean.
Throughout their unbeaten streak, the Bulls benefitted from other teams’ inability to shoot the ball from long range. Opponents shot only 30.1% from 3-point range against the Bulls in the first five games of the season — the lowest efficiency clip in the entire league.
Does this mean the Bulls are the best 3-point defense in the league? It’s hard to tell. That five-game span also saw opponents take the second-fewest defended attempts from behind the 3-point arc, which means that opposing shooters were missing a larger percentage of wide-open attempts. But the Bulls have also credited their breathless tempo for tiring out opponents, which contributes to poor overall shooting from the floor (47%).
Either way, the game changed at the perimeter on Sunday. The Knicks shot at a 47.6% clip to rack up 20 baskets from behind the arc — and shot better from 3-point range than from inside the arc (43.4%). The game started with a torrential downpour from deep as the Knicks went 13-for-21 from 3-point range (61.9%) in the first half.
The Bulls attempted to provide an answer — shooting 42.5% from behind the arc to tally 17 3-pointers of their own — but that wasn’t enough to eclipse the best 3-point shooting night of the season for the Knicks.
2. It was a sloppy affair.
The Bulls were short-handed and out of sorts only two days after a statement win over the Knicks in the group stage of the NBA Cup.
Despite outscoring the Knicks in the paint, the Bulls couldn’t force their way to the free-throw line, where they were outshot 22-9. Karl-Anthony Towns went 8-for-8 and Jalen Brunson went 7-for-7 from the penalty stripe as the Knicks bullied the Bulls in their trademark style of gritty offense.
And the Bulls struggled to control the ball, giving up 16 points off 14 turnovers. OG Anunoby bowled Tre Jones over in the third quarter to force an easy give-up at half court. Nikola Vučević allowed a smaller guard to pick his pocket during an attempted post-up on two separate plays. Giddey led the team with four turnovers against his 12 assists.
3. The Bulls missed Ayo Dosunmu.
A player’s impact is often best measured in their absences — and the Bulls certainly saw the importance of Ayo Dosunmu during Sunday’s loss, which the guard missed after suffering a quad contusion in Friday’s win over the Knicks.
Dosunmu powered the Bulls throughout the opening unbeaten stretch of the season. The guard averaged 16.2 points, three rebounds and 3.2 assists in 26.2 minutes off the bench through the first five games. He tallied two of the team’s average 13.6 makes from behind the arc per game. And he came up in the clutch with consistency, knocking down a trio of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter of last week’s win over the Orlando Magic.
The Bulls shifted Dosunmu’s bench minutes almost entirely over to Patrick Williams and Kevin Huerter, who combined for only 18 points. Williams snagged two steals and Huerter tallied two blocks, but neither player was able to provide the defensive momentum necessary to slow the Knicks at the perimeter.
