Bulls Give Up Lead, Lose to Lakers

It was a pretty promising first half for the Bulls in Los Angeles Tuesday night, all things considered. In a game where Lauri Markkanen struggled to find his shot, the Bulls were able to take advantage of sloppy play by their opponents to build a solid lead through the game’s first 24 minutes.

The two teams were pretty even for the first 10 minutes of the contest, before Antonio Blakeney scored every point of an 11–3 Bulls run that put the Bulls in control of the game for the rest of the half. Blakeney would finish the night with 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting.

While the Bulls would keep that control throughout most of the third quarter, the Lakers closed the period with a 10–2 run of their own to pull within three points. Late in the final quarter Kentavious Caldwell-Pope would score after pulling down an offensive rebound to give the Lakers a 91–89 lead, and then connect from long-range on two of the next three possessions to help his team secure the 103–94 win.

Despite the second-half struggles there are a few things to be optimistic about in this game in addition to Blakeney’s spark early on. Denzel Valentine finished with a team-leading 17 points while shooting 6–12 from the field and 5–7 from deep. And in what would definitely be categorized as a bad game, Markkanen still ended up with 13 points and 14 rebounds.

The Bulls are now 3–12 and will continue their west coast trip Wednesday night in Utah at 8 p.m. CT.