CHICAGO — Determined to put the Chicago Bulls to bed, Anthony Edwards ducked behind a Rudy Gobert ball screen on the right wing, then took one last dribble to get to his sweet spot, adjacent to the “C” of the United Center logo. From 25 feet away, Edwards gathered his feet, squared his body and fired a shot high over a late-arriving Nikola Vučević and a too-little, too-late recovery from Ayo Dosunmu.
Splash!
Edwards then roared.
In his lone visit to Chicago — home to the statue of Michael Jordan, to whom the Minnesota Timberwolves star has drawn comparisons — Edwards took a victory lap. After his dagger, which put a bow on his game-high 33 points (20 in the second half) in Thursday night’s 135-119 Timberwolves victory, Edwards strutted around the court howling at the crowd.
“I know we needed it,” Edwards said of his takeover.
🗣️🗣️🗣️ pic.twitter.com/tLvRYZrlak
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) November 8, 2024
Minnesota (5-3) allowed a Bulls team playing without injured guards Zach LaVine and Lonzo Ball to race to 65 halftime points. Chicago shot 60 percent from the field in the first half. The Bulls also were 10 of 17 from 3-point range and had dished 20 assists on 24 made field goals during that time.
Their problems came after the Wolves woke up in the fourth quarter — a 45-point fourth quarter.
“We ain’t taking no pride in stopping nobody right now early in the game,” Edwards said. “That’s troubling. That’s scary. We’ve got to figure that part out. We’re terrible until we get down. When we get down, that’s when everybody wants to play defense. But if we play from the beginning, we’ll be the best team.”
When the Wolves turned it on, they looked nothing like the team that allowed a layup line and open shooters to grow comfortable in the first half. Instead, they resembled last season’s top-ranked defense. Their fourth-quarter eruption — and 79-point second half — drew heavy postgame attention.
Edwards, however, took more pleasure in the Wolves allowing only 24 fourth-quarter points. It was the only quarter the Bulls were held to less than 30 points.
“That’s what’s ideal. F— the offense,” Edwards said. “That’s what we talked about at halftime: ‘One of these quarters, they’ve got to have 20 points.’ So, right around 24 points or less in a quarter is what we need to start holding ourselves to. They had 60-something points at halftime. We can’t win a basketball game like that, not if we’re a defensive team.”
Edwards and Gobert combined for 24 of the Wolves’ 45 points in the fourth, combining to go 9 of 9 from the field. Minnesota shot 17 of 24 (71 percent) in that quarter. Julius Randle finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds, and Mike Conley had 14 points and 11 assists for the Wolves. Minnesota also set a season-high for points scored.
For the Bulls (3-6), who lost their fourth straight game, it was the second time in three games they’ve allowed their opponent a season high in scoring. Utah scored a season-high 135 on Monday, despite being without leading scorer Lauri Markkanen. Playing on the second night of a back-to-back after a loss at Dallas, the shorthanded Bulls, even at home, weren’t positioned to last long against a Western Conference heavyweight.
But once the Wolves shut off Chicago’s first-half shooting, they turned a woeful effort into a dominant road win.
“We changed up the game plan at halftime,” Edwards said. “All they were doing was dribble, dribble, dribble, handoff. Get downhill. Kick. Corner. Trey. We were, like, ‘F— that. No help. Make them boys finish.’ They struggled to finish.”
You can toss poor starts, porous defense, problematic turnovers and erratic shooting on a growing pile for the Bulls. After an encouraging start, they’ve fallen to 21st in defensive rating at 115.3. As of late, the Bulls have been offsetting quality minutes with bumbling, senseless and sloppy basketball.
The consequence Thursday was having to watch Edwards woof around on the Bulls’ floor after Chicago just wilted.
“The thing that we’re fighting for, whether it be individually or collectively, is how we create consistency,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “When it’s not individual play that’s up and down, it’s team play that’s up and down.”
Another stat: In seven of their nine games, the Bulls have allowed their opponents more shot attempts.
“Why is that happening? The rebounding and the turnovers,” Donovan said. “Those are areas I really believe we can be better at, we’ve got to be better at.”
The Bulls think they can grit and grind their way to wins. They know they face a talent deficit on most nights. But they’re also losing at basics like hustling to loose balls and shedding screens. Those are the fundamental moves Donovan believes are in his team’s control.
“We have individual stretches and team stretches where we look great,” Bulls guard Josh Giddey said, “and then we have stretches where we look horrible. We’ve just got to string 48 minutes together.
“We love what we have in this locker room, and we think we’ve got enough to be in games with teams like (Minnesota) — and we absolutely do. We showed it for probably 36 minutes of the game.”
(Photo of Anthony Edwards and Dalen Terry: Kamil Krzaczynski / Imagn Images)
