Winners of four straight after a stretch of eight losses in nine games, the Chicago Bulls aim to maintain momentum as they host the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night.
Chicago kicks off a six-game homestand on the heels of Tuesday’s 126-123 victory in Atlanta, which saw the Bulls rally from an 18-point deficit.
Two days earlier, Chicago edged Atlanta 152-150 on the same floor in the highest-scoring game in the NBA this season, helping the Bulls rebuild their confidence from an extended slide.
“It was about being resilient,” Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu said. “We understand that wasn’t the best basketball we were playing. Staying with it, not getting down. … We’ve got to keep doing it.”
The Bulls can clinch the season series with the 76ers with a victory. Chicago clipped visiting Philadelphia 113-111 on Nov. 4 behind a triple-double from Josh Giddey, who contributed 29 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists.
Giddey notched his seventh triple-double of the season on Tuesday with 19 points, 15 assists and 11 rebounds. He has remained steady while the Bulls navigated various injuries and lineup changes.
“I give our guys a lot of credit,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “I never tried to make excuses for what we went through before. I’ve said it before that there was a lot on Josh’s plate and we got very one-dimensional. … But then when you have Zach Collins and Tre Jones and Kevin Huerter and Isaac Okoro all sitting over there (injured), in a lot of ways they also are playmakers. For us, when you take playmaking off the court it becomes hard for us; we become one-dimensional.
“You start to get bodies back and there was more ball handling, more playmaking. It gave us more size.”
Philadelphia is still searching for consistency as the team works through its own health issues.
Tuesday’s game against Brooklyn marked just the third time this season that Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey have played together. The 76ers fell to 0-3 in those games with a 114-106 home loss to the Nets.
“We all just got to figure out how to find rhythm, playing off one another,” George said.
Embiid paced the team with 27 points in 31 minutes but left for parts of the third quarter after hyperextending his right knee.
Injuries to both knees have limited Embiid to just 12 games this season, but he indicated the incident Tuesday did not appear to be serious.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll see how it feels. Obviously, when you’re hurt, it’s kind of hard to judge.”
Tuesday is the beginning of a five-game road trip for Philadelphia, which has won three of its past four away from home.
The Bulls have won three straight in the series and Giddey is averaging 16.6 points, 10.6 rebounds and 7.8 assists in his last five games against the 76ers.
–Field Level Media
