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The Chicago Bulls appeared to still be hungover on Saturday night from their miraculous buzzer-beating win over the Los Angeles Lakers two nights earlier. The Bulls let down their guard against a shorthanded Dallas Mavericks team in a 120-119 loss in front of 21,045 fans at the United Center.
The Bulls entered their contest against the Mavs with a four-game winning streak. Chicago had earned that winning streak by playing aggressive and smart. On Saturday night, the Bulls struggled with defense and turnovers against Dallas, turning over the ball 19 times to the Mavs’ six turnovers.
The Chicago Bulls didn’t have that “pop”
Following the game, head coach Billy Donovan told reporters that he thought the turnovers hurt the Bulls’ chances of winning. He thought the team didn’t have the “pop” they showed in previous contests during the winning streak.
“I didn’t think we kind of had it tonight, to be quite honest, the pop that was there (before),” Donovan said via Cody Westerlund of 670 The Score. “I thought our guys were trying, but like to me, the carelessness with the turnovers, I thought that really impacted the game.
“I thought we got too deep into the lane. I thought we could’ve generated and manufactured better shots. I didn’t think it was a lack of effort there. It was just a game that was a struggle for us.”
Billy Donovan was worried before the game
Donovan hinted before the game that he was worried about the “pop” his young roster would have against the Mavs after defeating the Lakers in dramatic fashion on Thursday night.
“They’ve got to be able to handle the emotion,” Donovan said. “That’s another part, I think, of the growth that we’ve got to make as a team. Because if at some point you do want to get to the playoffs, sometimes those playoff games can be really, really emotional from one game to the next and you’ve got to be able to flush those games and be able to refocus and raise your energy level and not have it zapped.
“Sometimes you can have heartbreaking losses or really, really emotional wins. It’s about how you come back off of that. We need to put that behind us and be able to move forward.”
A harsh lesson indeed.
The Bulls weren’t able to put that win behind them, and it cost them a chance to improve their seeding for the Play-In Tournament. At 33-41, Chicago is tied for the No. 9 spot in the Eastern Conference with the Miami Heat.
The Bulls need to learn how to move on from the highs of winning a close game against a playoff-caliber team if they ever want to make a deep playoff run themselves.
If this roster isn’t capable of sustaining consistent successes against playoff-caliber teams, they’re wasting the fans’ time and the ownership’s money on more mediocre Play-In Tournament games.
More must-reads:
- Six players who could succeed Celtics guard as Sixth Man of the Year
- Five takeaways from the 2025-26 NBA schedule: New rivalries? Challenging the NCAA?
- The 'NBA minutes leaders by season' quiz
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Five takeaways from the 2025-26 NBA schedule: New rivalries? Challenging the NCAA?
The NBA released its official schedule for the 2025-26 season Wednesday, featuring holiday specials, In-Season Tournament games and two new broadcast partners in NBC and Amazon Prime. Here are five takeaways from the new schedule. 1. The NBA is cultivating new rivalries Opening night features future Hall of Famers continuing longtime rivalries — Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors versus LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, plus Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets versus the Oklahoma City Thunder and their fans. But in the first week of the season, the NBA is promoting a new generation of rivalries. No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks face No. 2 pick Dylan Harper and the San Antonio Spurs Oct. 22. The two Texas cities have an underrated beef with one another, which is charged up further by the presence of 2023 No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama. The Mavericks also play the Thunder in the season's first week, thus facing both their I-35 neighbors. Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets start the season with three recent playoff opponents in the Warriors, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers face the Wolves, who knocked them out of the playoffs last year, in their second game. The New York Knicks lead with their biggest conference rival, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and get the Boston Celtics in their second game. The NBA is front-loading its most highly charged games. 2. The Houston Rockets host some huge doubleheaders late The NBA started having teams play a baseball-style two-game series in recent years, as a way to cut down on travel. For the Rockets, that development means they have two doubleheaders in the second half of the season that could have an outsized effect on the playoff picture. March 16 and 18, the Rockets play host to the Lakers, who could be one of their top competitors. Then Houston closes out the year hosting the two-time conference finalist Timberwolves on the final Friday of the season. They also host a back-to-back with the Los Angeles Clippers on the last two nights before the All-Star break. Those are three tough, high-impact series. The Rockets are fortunate to get them all at home. 3. The West gets Christmas, the East gets MLK Day While Western Conference teams took eight of the NBA's 10 Christmas Day slots, the NBA's all-day marathon for Martin Luther King Jr. Day is tilted eastward. All four of the games are hosted by Eastern Conference teams, with only two West teams participating. The Knicks and Cavs play on both holidays, as do the Thunder and Mavericks, a sign the NBA is betting big on Flagg. But the NBA is spreading the television wealth, even if MLK Day isn't as prominent a showcase as Christmas, and they've picked teams that could well be the top six in the East. 4. The NBA is directly challenging the NCAA There used to be an unspoken tradition that the NBA didn't schedule games the night of the NCAA championship game. That's no longer the case. Last year, the NBA scheduled two games the same night as the title game. This year, there are five, including a Knicks-Atlanta Hawks game that will appear on Peacock. Perhaps it's because the NFL began aggressively scheduling games on Christmas, previously the domain of the NBA only. Perhaps it's because college players can get paid, leading to a significant number of players withdrawing from the NBA Draft. But it seems the NBA decided that the NCAA is a competitor, not a friend. 5. Big markets don't automatically get national TV games The Lakers, Knicks and Warriors are tied for most nationally televised games with 34 each, but that's also the number the small-market Thunder are playing. The Timberwolves and Rockets get 28 each, while the Nuggets, Celtics and Cavs get 26, 25 and 24 each. That's four relatively small cities in the top nine. Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat are in huge media markets, and they're playing two, three and five national TV games, respectively. The New Orleans Pelicans also have only two national TV games, a sign that the enthusiasm for Zion Williamson has officially disappeared. The Pels were on national TV 30 times during Williamson's rookie season. Now they're tied for last in the NBA with three tanking teams and the Toronto Raptors, whose games are televised in a different nation.
NFL under fire for decision on Chiefs WR Rashee Rice
The Kansas City Chiefs appeared to receive an early gift from the NFL regarding wide receiver Rashee Rice's looming suspension. The third-year receiver is set to have a disciplinary hearing on Sept. 30 after he pleaded guilty to collision involving serious bodily injury and racing on a highway causing bodily injury. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and five years of probation. The timing of Rice's hearing is curious because he pleaded guilty to his charges on the same day Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge connected to his arrest for alleged DUI. The league has already suspended Addison for the first three games of the upcoming season. Per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, a league source told him that the NFL doesn't typically delay hearings as it has in the case of Rice, preferring to finalize a punishment before Week 1. “Maybe I’m a conspiracy theorist, but this is odd," said the unnamed source, via Florio. “You hardly ever see players get suspended in season unless they did something in season like a drug test or something.” The suspicion from the source and Florio is that the league is keeping Rice available for marquee matchups in the early season. The Chiefs begin their season in Sao Paulo, Brazil, playing the Los Angeles Chargers. Kansas City then plays the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants ("Sunday Night Football") and Baltimore Ravens. Florio suggested that with a hearing date of Sept. 30, Rice would likely start any suspension the Chiefs' Week 5 contest against the Jacksonville Jaguars on "Monday Night Football." "At a time when many think the league favors the Chiefs, situations like this will not become evidence to the contrary," Florio said. While the early slate of games is impressive for the Chiefs, their schedule is jam-packed with heavyweight matchups. The next four games after Week 5 include the Detroit Lions ("Sunday Night Football"), Las Vegas Raiders, Washington Commanders ("Monday Night Football" and Buffalo Bills. While the league has some explaining to do as to why it chose Sept. 30 as the date, it's hard to see why the Chiefs would have an advantage by losing Rice for those games.
Green Bay Packers: Tucker Kraft Highlights Glaring Issue Amid Jordan Love’s Absence
The Green Bay Packers got to practice with the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday, with many players missing on Matt LaFleur’s side due to injuries. As such, several younger players got to see more action on the field, and while Green Bay had success here and there, the first-team offense, without Jordan Love, reportedly struggled finding its rhythm. For tight end Tucker Kraft, the issues can be attributed to “youth” and lack of experience as a whole. “Some of our youth showed a lot,” Kraft said, per Matt Schneidman of The Athletic. “When we’re out there, the importance is knowing what to do and doing it at a really fast speed at a very consistent level, so our youth showed a little bit in some instances with the injuries that we have on our depth chart.” Still, Kraft is looking forward to the “young guys” making better things happen in the next session with the Colts, whom they will also be facing in a preseason game on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium. “You get these young guys in a situation where they might not be as confident in themselves as far as the textbook goes,” Kraft added (h/t Mike Spofford of Packers.com). “So they might not be surging off the rock, working edges, angles in the route game to the best of their ability. They got another shot with these guys, so we’ll just have to see how they do in Part 2.” Injuries have piled up for the Green Bay Packers amid NFL preseason Apart from Love, who went under the knife to repair what appears to be a minor finger issue, the Packers are also dealing with injuries to Jayden Reed, Romeo Doubs, Xavier McKinney, Christian Watson and Dontayvion Wicks. The hope is that at least most of them will be ready to give it a go when the Packers kick off their 2025 NFL regular season against the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field on September 7.
Pete Alonso gets awesome gift from Mets after breaking HR record
Pete Alonso is officially the New York Mets' all-time home run king, and the team has pulled out all the stops while crowning its slugger. Alonso hit the 253rd and 254th home runs of his Mets career in the team's 13-5 win over the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday night. He surpassed previous franchise record-holder Darryl Strawberry, who hit 252 home runs with the Mets from 1983-1990. Prior to Thursday night's game against the Braves, the Mets presented Alonso with a custom painting that was made from 253 baseballs. The portrait shows Alonso in the home-run trot from his 253rd homer. That was not the only gift the Mets had for Alonso, either. They also gave him a new Ford F-150 truck. Alonso entered free agency last offseason but did not generate as much interest as he had hoped. He wound up returning to the Mets on a two-year, $54M deal. The second year is a player option, and Alonso is widely expected to opt out. One Mets player suggested that Alonso's new home run record could inspire the 30-year-old to re-sign with the team, but New York would have to pay up to make that happen. Alonso entered Thursday batting .272 with 28 home runs and an MLB-leading 98 RBI. His relationship with the Mets seems strong at the moment, and the gifts may have helped solidify it even further. That does not mean Alonso is going to offer any type of hometown discount.
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