The Wizards may be in the middle of yet another disappointing season and have suffered through myriad injuries, but they're currently healthy and the Bulls were beat to shit. Derrick Rose decided not to play in this one, so the talent difference was even more star, having one true point guard on the roster in Aaron Brooks. The Wizards had Bradley Beal, Nene, and Markieff Morris coming off their bench (and Alan Anderson had his first game of the year, and he's not awful), while the Bulls were running pick and roll in the second quarter with Justin Holiday and Christiano Felicio. But hey, Felicio did some nice work in rim protection and rebounding, and Holiday hit a three. And starting point guard E'Twaun Moore not only wasn't overwhelmed as a primary ballhandler, he closed things against John Wall. It was that kind of game! And an improbable 109-104 win.
The Wizards like to use a small-ball 4 with Jared Dudley and the slightly bigger Markieff Morris, and the Bulls bigs punished them inside to begin the game. Taj Gibson had an immaculate first half with 17 points on 6-9 shooting, including three and-ones in the second quarter alone. Pau Gasol had 8 points with 6 assists in the half, and there was a lot of high-low action between the two of them.
This was a fast-paced, long-distance shooting, and high-turnover first half from both teams, with the Bulls ending the half on a little surge to take the lead at 57-55. They then hit their first 7 shots to start the second half to get a 12 point lead. The Bulls defense was letting a lot of open shots get up, but they still performed far better than the Wizards on that end. Washington was just atrocious.
The Bulls took a 15 point lead on this Doug McDermott baseline drive and dunk on a sleepy Wizards defense.
The Bulls had a ten point lead heading into the 4th, which the Wizards had down to three in under 4 minutes as Aaron Brooks was getting cooked. Once Moore was back in, the Bulls were able to keep a bit of a cushion behind some offensive rebounding and MORE MCDERMOTT DUNKS.
Moore was phenomenal down the stretch and outplayed John Wall, hitting a couple floaters while Wall would rush down to get the Wiz another bricked jumper from somebody.
This is a huge win. Not only at the Wizards behind them in the standings (and really, write off their season with this performance, yuck), but with no Rose it seemed like an easy one to just get blown out and forget about it. But credit to everyone up and down the Bulls roster for stepping up, and Fred Hoiberg for getting them this way...it was downright Thibsian! The Wizards were on a back-to-back and on the road, but had an immense talent edge and couldn't couldn't do anything with it. The Bulls had 7 players in double figures, even the fairly-maligned Tony Snell had 16 and Brooks got to 11.
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