NBA says late foul should have been called in favor of Bulls DeRozan in Tuesday’s loss to Clippers
DeMar DeRozan successfully predicted the future after Tuesday’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, saying the NBA would admit a foul should have been called when he lost the ball in the final minute.
Sure enough, when the league’s latest two-minute report came out on Wednesday, it said DeRozan was fouled by Clippers guard Reggie Jackson and should have been awarded 2 free throws with 38.7 seconds remaining. . The Bulls were trailing by one point at the time.
The final two-minute report also said the Bulls should have been called for a five-second violation on their final closeout attempt, which ended in a turnover anyway. But more on that later.
It’s easy to lose count, but it was at least the fifth late-game call against the Bulls this season that was ruled incorrect a day later.
In Washington’s second game of the season, DeRozan should have shot 3 free throws for the win, he was grossly fouled on a game-winning attempt against Cleveland, umpires missed a roving call and a violation free throw a few days later against the Cavs, and DeRozan should have gotten a 3-point game opportunity late in a loss at Indiana last week.
The first three errors played a big role in the outcome, Indiana’s minus it, and it’s hard to say what would have happened against the Clippers. If DeRozan had made 2 free throws, the Bulls would have had a 1 point lead. As it stands, they fell behind by 3 when Norman Powell hit a pair of free throws on the other end and then the Bulls lost the ball on the inbound play that followed.
“No matter how you lose, it stinks,” DeRozan said after the game. “Obviously it was a foul, it just stinks that they wake up tomorrow and read the report for the last two minutes and something else will be missed that might have cost us the game, that’s the most frustrating part.”
The turnover on the late inbound pass was troubling, as it happened twice in the past week. The Bulls also handed it over late in a close game at Indiana.
From an outside perspective, it’s always hard to tell what was supposed to happen. But in Tuesday’s game, the biggest problem seemed to be that the Bulls were taking too long to start the game.
Alex Caruso already had the ball in his hands before Zach LaVine cut under the basket, in front of a double screen set by DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic on the foul line. Once LaVine got to the top of the key, Clippers forward Nic Batum jumped on a switch.
At this point, no one was open and the clock was ticking, so it looked like DeRozan and LaVine had both improvised, but ended up in the same place. Caruso somehow put the ball in between, it was knocked down and stolen by Kawhi Leonard.
Keep in mind that the NBA said the Bulls should have been called for a five-second violation, so Caruso was eager to offload the ball.
“I think there was probably a little misunderstanding on our part about where the ball was going,” Caruso said after the game. “For the most part we ran the game we were supposed to play. We just didn’t execute the protection aspect the way they kept it. They were changing everything, so maybe we could have filter better or open better.”
LaVine added: “I just tried to break my cut, because Batum came out. They change a lot. We could have done something a little different or just tried to get the ball in. Alex did the right thing. Game.”
The Bulls had different issues in the Indiana game. LaVine was the inbound passer on the first attempt, couldn’t get it to Vucevic, and called a timeout. He didn’t see Caruso open up under the basket.
After the timeout, Caruso was the inbound setter and had Vucevic open, but his pass was deflected by Buddy Hield and stolen.
The Bulls’ quest to get back to .500 isn’t going well, but they’ll play three straight games at home against teams with losing records — Charlotte, Portland and San Antonio. The problem is that they then embark directly on a difficult three-game road trip to Memphis, Brooklyn and Cleveland.
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