Lessons learned from the NBA Cup loss to the Boston Celtics

The Chicago Bulls were just minutes away from advancing in the NBA Cup tournament on Friday evening at the United Center.

With eight minutes left, the Bulls evened the score with the Boston Celtics for the tenth and final time. But despite holding the league’s best offensive team at bay for three quarters, the Bulls couldn’t finish in a 138-129 loss, which was their fifth final loss of the season.

The final period was full of mistakes: He allowed an offensive rebound after a Boston free throw and failed to convert a Lonzo Ball steal. And the Celtics hit six 3-pointers – including a final dagger at the buzzer to improve their point differential for the NBA Cup tiebreaker – dashing any remaining hopes the Bulls had of reaching the quarterfinals.

Here are five takeaways from the loss.

1. The Bulls failed in a 3-point shootout.

The formula for Friday’s match was pretty clear before either team entered the building: take (and hopefully make) a whole lot of three-point shots.

The Celtics are the only team in the NBA to average more than 50 attempts per game from behind the arc. The Bulls aren’t far behind — averaging 42.9 attempts, third in the league — as they score the majority of their points from 3-point range. And despite a slow start, the Bulls were able to hold their own for the most part in this long-distance game.

Both teams conceded more than 50 3-pointers – 54 for the Celtics, 51 for the Bulls – while capitalizing on their strengths. Ultimately, missed 3s made the difference. The Bulls gained a slight lead in other areas, including points in the paint (52-50) and on the fast break (17-16), while mostly keeping Boston off the glass.

But the Celtics made three more 3-pointers than the Bulls and won by nine points. Their late 3-point breakthrough was fueled by Payton Pritchard, who hit five 3s in the fourth quarter to stave off the Bulls’ final push. And without meaningful shots from Coby White (1 of 7 on 3s) or Lonzo Ball (0 of 3), the Bulls didn’t have a final counterattack.

2. Nikola Vučević has found his groove.

For most of the first half, Vučević was the only Bulls player to make a significant long-range contribution, hitting three-pointers on four consecutive plays in the final two minutes of the first half. He said it was the first time he had hit so many threes in a row since he was a teenager in Europe.

Vučević finished the season with a season-high 32 points, including 6 of 9 shooting from behind the arc, and added 11 rebounds to complete another double-double. He approaches Zach LaVine as the team’s leading scorer and is less than a point behind LaVine’s average.

3. Lonzo Ball replaced Josh Giddey in the final lineup.