ATLANTA – Derrick Jones Jr. did almost everything right on the play.
Almost.
And for a Bulls team that spends way too many early quarters seemingly OK with nonchalant turnovers and digging themselves into deficits, almost can be haunting.
Even when there’s less than a second left on the clock and victory is in hand.
Thanks to an unbelievable twisting alley-oop lay-in at the horn by AJ Griffin – yes, the son of former Bulls assistant coach Adrian Griffin – Atlanta not only snatched victory away from the Bulls in the 123-122 overtime win, but snatched a couple hearts out along the way.
“We’ve had enough trial and error,” Bulls veteran DeMar DeRozan said of the latest loss. “We know what works when we do it right, and at this point we should know what doesn’t work when we’re doing it wrong. This one sucks, this one hurts.”
DeRozan wasn’t alone in that feeling.
Jones was right there with him, especially after helping the Bulls overcome a 12-point deficit off the bench, and also having a chance to play hero.
With the game tied and 2.1 second left, Trae Young hit a 20-foot step back to put the momentum solely on the shoulders of the home team. Out of the time out and advancing the ball, however, it was DeRozan doing DeRozan things, catching the inbound beyond the three-point line and immediately getting fouled by Bogdan Bogdanovic with that half a second left on the shot attempt.
DeRozan made all three free throws, setting the stage for Griffin’s heroics.
Out of the first set, Young was the inbounder and had to call another timeout after the Bulls defended the back-cut perfectly. Jalen Johnson was the inbounder for the second attempt of running a play, and the Hawks used Young as the decoy, having him run off a stack of picks to pull the defense out.
Jones switched on to Griffin, but as Johnson tossed the ball up towards the hoop, Jones took his eye off the ball for a split second. A split second was all Griffin needed.
He caught the ball in the air, and in one motion twisted his body to connect on the lay-in.
“It wasn’t going in the entire game … they drew a play for me and I really appreciate that,” Griffin said of the play. “You’ve got a lot of things going on in your head, but you just want to get the shot off.”
Which would have been nearly impossible if the high-riser in Jones would have seen the ball.
“I did take my eye off the ball for a second, but I’ve just got to be better in that situation,” Jones said. “Honestly, if I would have seen the ball, nobody in this league jumps higher than me, so I would have definitely got that.”
What Jones and the Bulls (11-15) got was another loss, and more questions to answer, especially about a first half that was there for the taking if they could have only stayed out of their own way.
After playing a very clean game against Dallas just 24 hours earlier, the Bulls had their share of some iffy shot selection, but the head scratcher was a nonchalant attitude with the basketball. There were four Zach LaVine turnovers in the first quarter alone, eight team turnovers by halftime, and 15 by the end of the third quarter.
So while DeRozan’s 34 points and late-game heroics were nice, the veteran wasn’t at all satisfied and didn’t want his team satisfied.
“We feel it now,” DeRozan said. “We’ve dug ourselves a hole and now we’ve made it hard on ourselves where every single game is extremely important. That’s how we’ve got to approach it if we want to make something happen out of it.”