Nikola Vučević leads the Chicago Bulls to a 130-116 win — but the defense remains under the microscope: ‘It starts with your physicality’

The Chicago Bulls were focused on one thing in the hours between their flight home from San Antonio and Sunday’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers at the United Center — defending the ball.

The Bulls allowed 131 points Friday in a resounding loss to the Spurs despite a dynamic night of offense. Against the Blazers, coach Billy Donovan wanted to flip the script, but it took a full half for those defensive adjustments to set in.

Although the Bulls needed another big scoring night to cement the 130-116 victory, this time it was enough to win the same type of shootout they lost in San Antonio.

All three of the Bulls All-Stars scored at least 20 points: Nikola Vučević led the team with 24 and 14 rebounds, DeMar DeRozan finished with 23 and 10 assists and Zach LaVine added 20 and four assists. The win marked another critical step for Vučević, who has emphasized a need for more touches to contribute effectively to the Bulls offense.

The double-double was Vučević's 26th this season, tying him with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jarrett Allen for sixth in the league despite low scoring stretches throughout the season.

“I take a lot of pride in consistency,” Vučević said. “It’s something that I’ve really been good at my whole career, being a big man that can score and does a good job rebounding. That’s something that I can do consistently, and so I do take a lot of pride in that, especially the rebounding part. That’s something I can always control every night no matter what’s going on out there. I can always box out my guy and grab a rebound.”

Javonte Green scored a season-high 16 points before exiting with an apparent injury to his right upper torso. Coby White scored 18 points, continuing to warm up from an ice-cold stretch of long-range shooting with three 3-pointers. The Bulls finished with 36 assists on 50 baskets while turning the ball over only seven times.

The Blazers are not a good defensive team — ranked 27th in the league entering Sunday with 112.3 points allowed per game — so the game didn’t serve as a strong test, but it helped the Bulls retool their offensive rhythm after a series of losses throughout January.

The Bulls defense has been under a microscope since injuries sidelined guards Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso for six to eight weeks each. They struggled to handle the Spurs offense — which threw 89 pick-and-roll plays at Vučević — amid a run of high-scoring games highlighted by the loss of their two defensive specialists.

Although Green’s return from injury shored up the team’s rim protection, the Bulls are struggling to stay connected and maintain spacing when teams move the ball quickly or force frequent switches. For Donovan, the drop-off in defensive rigor will be the Bulls’ main focus in the upcoming weeks without their top perimeter defenders.

“There were times we got spread out, and because of our size we’ve got to be really physical and tough from the 3-point line and in,” Donovan said. “When we get spread out and we’re not in there to help, that’s where we’ve got to be better.

“We’re going to have to be in position, we have to help each other. We’ve got to do a better job helping behind pick-and-roll, we’ve got to do a better job helping on the ball, we’ve got to do a better job shifting to prevent penetration. There’s just a lot of things we’ve got to do better, and it starts with your physicality.”

Those disconnects showed up early against the Blazers, who shot 7-for-11 from 3-point range in the first quarter. The Blazers scored 65 points in the first half, exploiting slow rotations in the Bulls defense to keep pace.

But unlike two nights earlier, the Bulls made in-game adjustments to slow the second half, clamping down on close-outs to force the Blazers to cool off from long range.

The win helped the Bulls continue to pull out of a recent 2-7 skid as they went 3-1 over the last week After entering the new year at the top of the standings, the Bulls are now on tenuous footing in the Eastern Conference. While they’re only a half-game behind the first-place Miami Heat, they’re also only two games or less ahead of the next four teams.

The Bulls (31-18) already have won the same number of games (31) as they did in the entire 2020-21 season with 33 games remaining. But Donovan said they can’t put too much significance in that turnaround after a massive roster overhaul in the offseason.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with anything just because our team’s totally different,” Donovan said. “Maybe if our team was exactly the same coming back into this year ... but (the injured) Patrick Williams and Zach and Coby are the only three guys.

“But these guys have done a good job and I’m really hopeful that we could use these six to eight weeks and, knock on wood, we can get whole and really have our whole team.”