‘I don’t think you throw it out, you own it’: Chicago Bulls blown out by Brooklyn Nets in the final regular-season meeting between the top 2 teams in the Eastern Conference

Sometimes even great teams need a reality check during the course of a long season.

The Chicago Bulls, leaders of the Eastern Conference, aren’t immune to learning moments, though their latest came in an ugly blowout loss Wednesday night to the title-contending Brooklyn Nets. The little things can become magnified and separate being good and winning an NBA title.

For the Bulls, defensive breakdowns and third-quarter struggles quickly snowballed proved costly in a 138-112 loss. At one point, with less than five minutes left in the fourth, the Bulls trailed by 38 points.

“I don’t think you throw it out, you own it,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said of the loss. “Guys have worked really hard, up to this point to be where we are in the standings and with that there’s an even greater responsibility.

“This can be something that can be good for our guys, hopefully, because it is only one game.”

The Bulls’ defensive woes weren’t limited to one issue against a Nets team playing with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden for just the second time this season. Donovan cited concentration, discipline and focus, predominantly on the defensive end, as contributing factors to their struggles. He made clear, however, his team competes and gives the effort he wants.

Ultimately, too many easy baskets for Brooklyn — at the free-throw line because of fouls (23-for-28) and in transition (19 fast-break points) — became problematic when the margin between winning and losing is small against teams of the Nets’ caliber.

“There’s a consistency in a discipline area that we’ve got to get better at,” Donovan said. "It’s the little things that you see and maybe for us it’s taking those moments and just understanding and I’m hoping there’s a connection.”

The Bulls had no answer for the Nets’ perimeter play.

A two-point halftime deficit got away from them within minutes in a third quarter that saw the Nets outscore them 39-19, sparking the rout. The Nets’ barrage of fast-break points, 3-pointers and pesky defense shut them down.

The first two quarters lived up to the marquee billing between the top two teams in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls and Nets traded blows early in front of an electric sold-out crowd at the United Center.

Before the teams’ third and final meeting of the regular season, Donovan touted the basketball IQ of Brooklyn’s Big 3 and called their passing ability and unselfishness “incredibly underrated.”

“When you have players of that level offensively that are willing to pass and make the right read and can read defense, it makes it really difficult,” Donovan said pregame. “Every possession is a 24-second possession against them because even if you shut off something for the first time and the ball comes around, skipped or swung, you’re dealing with somebody else on the back side and you get to do it again. You have to have a lot of stamina to play against them as great as they are.”

Donovan’s pregame analysis of the Bulls’ defensive challenges proved prescient. The Nets tallied an assist on 10 of their 12 first-quarter field goals to help build a seven-point lead. Durant, Irving and Harden each recorded three assists in the quarter.

The Nets finished with 35 assists on 49 baskets. Durant (27 points, nine assists) and Harden (25 points, 16 assists) paced the Brooklyn offense, while Patty Mills (21 points) was hot behind the arc, making 6 of 8 3-pointers. While the Bulls’ defense struggled to string together stops in the second half, it was a grind offensively to get going. Zach LaVine led the Bulls with 22 points, scoring seven of their final nine points in the first half to cut the Nets lead to 62-60.

LaVine believed the Bulls let their defensive frustrations affect their offense, which became stagnant.

“They’re attacking different matchups, they were hitting a lot of shots — they just had it going there,” LaVine said. “Good teams come out of in the third quarter and put teams asleep. We’ve done that to teams before, but we had it done to us tonight.

“It felt like they were the aggressor. We were responding to everything that they were doing.”

Offensively, the Nets didn’t show many signs of being out of sync in Irving’s third game of the season. His unvaccinated status prevents him from playing in home games due to New York’s vaccination requirements for indoor venues such as the Barclays Center.

Tied at 71 in the third, Brooklyn’s scoring outburst came on a variety of spurts, opening on a 7-0 run and then closing out the quarter with a 14-4 stretch.

“We got our (butt) kicked tonight,” DeMar DeRozan said. “It’s about how we bounce back from that.”

Coby White again provided the Bulls a boost off the bench with 16 points, his ninth straight game in double figures.

The Bulls’ rotation took a hit when forward Derrick Jones Jr. suffered a right knee injury 36 seconds into the game and did not return. The Bulls could have used guard Alex Caruso against a Nets backcourt that too often torched them.

However, Caruso remains in COVID-19 protocols, and it’s unclear when he will rejoin the team. Donovan said before Wednesday’s game that he doesn’t expect Caruso to be cleared and available for Friday’s game versus the Golden State Warriors.

Donovan didn’t put a timetable on when Caruso would be ready, explaining he needs to put together several tests that will position him to get on the court.

“I do think that the numbers are moving in the right direction,” Donovan said. “They’re probably not moving as fast as any of us would like. That’s part of the deal. And then once he does get cleared with what that is, we’ll have to find out how he feels physically and what the medical staff thinks about him playing.

“I don’t know enough about the cardio screening, where he’s at with that, but I do know that the biggest thing for him is he’s going to need to ramp up here.”

Injuries on top of the COVID-19 protocols have kept Caruso from appearing in a game since Dec. 20 — a factor in the Bulls wanting his cardio sufficiently built up before returning. He suffered a left foot sprain that sidelined him for six games before he entered the protocols last week.

He was scheduled for his first contact practice with teammates the day he became the 18th member of the Bulls to be placed in the league’s COVID-19 protocols. A right hamstring strain also cost Caruso two games in early December.

Wednesday’s game was the 13th that Caruso has missed. His return would have been a nice addition ahead of facing the Nets. Along with Caruso’s absence, Jones Jr.’s early injury and Javonte Green out with a right adductor strain, the Bulls’ matchups weren’t ideal versus the Nets’ personnel. That issue won’t go away until the Bulls are closer to 100% healthy.

“It‘s gonna be tough because you can’t replace those guys,” LaVine said. “But it’s always been our next man up, that’s the mentality that we’ve had, so it’s something that we’re gonna have to do.”