The Chicago Bulls pulled off a big surprise with a win right in the middle of Denver, which ended the Nuggets’ 7-game winning streak, and at the same time ended their own negative streak of 5 losses. Another excellent performance by Nikola Jokić did not help, because the other Nikola, Vučević, decided the game with a three-pointer 20 seconds before the end. In the end, 127: 130!
The Bulls started the game better, took the lead in the second quarter, made a ten-point difference with three-pointers from all positions, and then allowed the host to come back.
But just when it seemed that Denver had caught the rhythm, by the end of the third quarter, the efficient Chicago was again better in transition and restored the advantage to ten or more points. The start of the last period brought hope for Jokić and the team, the score see-saw lasted for the last 5 minutes, but Chicago had more nerves in the finish, and Vučević put the final touch with the already mentioned three-pointer.
If one detail needs to be highlighted that broke the game, it is certainly the 66 points from the Bulls’ bench versus only 9 for the Nuggets, which made a difference that even Jokić’s magic could not overturn.
The Serbian national team player had a slightly weaker shooting percentage (13-27), but he managed to keep his team in the uncertain finish until the end, with another triple-double and a final 36 points, a monstrous 18 rebounds and 13 assists.
He was followed by Murray with 34 points scored, 11 rebounds and 4 assists, Gordon with 24 (10 reb) and Cam Johnson with 19 (4 reb, 3 ast). The rest – desperately and averagely.
In the winning team, the load was evenly distributed, several players scored more than 10 points, and the most prominent were Giddey with 21 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists, Dosunmu also scored 21 (5 ast, 3 reb), while the hero Vučević had 8 points, jumped 9 times and shared 6 balls.
Denver is still second in the West with a 10-3 record and will visit the weak Pelicans in the next game, while Chicago is eighth in the East with a 7-6 record and will visit Portland.