The Bulls went flat again to start the fourth quarter as the Celtics eased ahead 83-77 on some clever inside play by David Lee in what was becoming another poor offensive fourth quarter for the Bulls.
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The second half got off to a disastrous start with eight Celtics points, but the Bulls answered the run before the game turned into kind of a mess.
The Bulls have dropped two consecutive games for the first time this season and will be looking to avoid losing three in a row for the first time since March 6-9. The defense did a decent job throughout, with the Celtics’ starting backourt of Thomas and Avery Bradley shooting just 10-of-30 combined (they missed a lot of good looks, though), but it wasn’t good enough. Mirotic had 10 points off the bench but was mostly very bad, and McDermott had 11 points, albeit on 4-of-11 shooting.
The Boston Celtics (12-9) are coming from a 111-93 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday. True to form, they made the Celtics pay on multiple occasions from the 3-point line. Thomas was 9 of 13 from the floor and hit all four 3-point attempts to shoot better than 50 percent for the second time in three games Monday, when he scored all but three of his 22 points in the first half.
After a Chicago miss, Boston’s Evan Turner was fouled and made the second of two free throws with 19.4 seconds to play which all but sealed the Celtics victory. The Celtics surprised a lot of people last season when they made the playoffs but they came in this year with bigger expectations and are now starting to live up to them.
“He’s one of those guys that can go off for 10 or 12 in a couple of minutes”, teammate Kelly Olynyk told the Celtics’ official website.
Averaging a career-high 21.0 points, guard Isaiah Thomas totaled 51 and went 7 of 17 from 3-point range in the last two at home.
In other National Basketball Association games on Wednesday night, the Miami Heat (12-7) take on the Charlotte Hornets (12-8), who are on a two-game winning streak, San Antonio Spurs (18-4) on a four-game winning streak, travel to face the Toronto Raptors (13-9), while the Los Angeles (12-9) meet the Milwaukee Bucks (9-13) at BMO Harris Bradley Center. “Can’t close teams out; have a lead, don’t finish, lose games…”
And Thomas bounced back from a scoreless first half to score 20 points to go with five rebounds and five assists.
“It’s just the ball was going in the basket”. Bulls G Derrick Rose is averaging 11 points on 34.1 percent shooting on the road.2. “We have yet to find it this year”.
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In this instance, the result was luckily a big-time play for Boston in front of a national audience in a key game against a fellow Eastern Conference contender.
