Detroit outscores Chicago by 33 points in a quarter and a half, embarrasses the Bulls
The NBA is a league full of runs. This run, however, was ridiculous even by NBA standards.
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The Detroit Pistons’ 107-91 win over the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night might scan as your typical blowout home victory, but Detroit’s final 16-point advantage hardly tells the whole story. The Pistons were down 19 points to Chicago with 19 minutes left in the game, and somehow managed to cobble together a one-sided win:
This came after Chicago made things respectable in the final stages. At one point, Detroit was in the midst of a 50-13 run.
Weirdly, this came after Chicago had turned a 10-point disadvantage of their own into what appeared to be an inevitable blowout win on their end. Chicago entered the second quarter down ten points, and yet managed to work up a 52-23 run of its own in 17 minutes of play, with Pau Gasol (25 points, 10 rebounds) doing most of the damage offensively.
Something clicked with Detroit, though. The Bulls could barely function as a team after the Pistons flipped the switch.
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Tayshaun Prince absolutely dominated his pairing with rookie Bulls forward Nikola Mirotic, denying Mirotic the ball and refusing to let the 24-year old work toward his comfort zones offensively. Mirotic, who had scored double-figures in his previous 11 games and managed a 27-point per game average in his last three contests, missed seven of eight shots from the field and finished with eight points.
On the other end, Piston guards Reggie Jackson and Spencer Dimwiddie managed to combine for 27 points and 13 assists in the second half, destroying Chicago’s counteroffer of Aaron Brooks and Kirk Hinrich, as the Bulls continued to work without starters Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler due to injury. Reserve guard E’Twaun Moore, oddly, played fewer than two minutes in the entire game. Dimwiddie, who entered the game making just 29.9 percent of his shots from the field, managed a season-high with 10 assists.
The Bulls, working on the second game of a back-to-back, absolutely crumbled in the face of a team that entered Saturday having lost 10 of 11 games. And don’t think the Bulls aren’t aware of what they’ve done:
Joakim was being kind, in this regard.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
