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‘We keep the fight’: With the Chicago Bulls down by 19, DeMar DeRozan and Ayo Dosunmu lead a huge 4th-quarter rally to beat the Boston Celtics 128-114

paul sullivan, chicago tribune
·5 min read
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You can’t tell by looking at the box score that Chicago Bulls star Zach LaVine is playing in pain.

Coming off a strong 26-point performance against the Utah Jazz, LaVine hasn’t shown any visible signs of distress since suffering torn ligaments in his left thumb one week ago.

But LaVine can feel the difference, even if it’s not noticeable to the naked eye.

“I can’t shoot the same,” he said before Monday’s 128-114 comeback win over the Boston Celtics at TD Garden. “I’m handling the ball and stuff like that. I’m out here doing everything I can to help the team. Obviously I can go and play through the pain. I can still be effective in the game. But once I get my feeling for my touch back, then I’ll be much happier.”

It took a while for LaVine to get that feeling, so he counted on his teammates Monday to pick up the load. DeMar DeRozan did it early, and rookie Ayo Dosunmu was unstoppable in his first extended minutes, hitting 6 of 6 from the field, including a 3-pointer with 6:53 left that capped a 17-2 run to erase a 14-point deficit entering the fourth quarter.

The Bulls are now 6-1, with significant back-to-back wins over the Jazz and Celtics.

“It’s very gratifying to see that we keep the fight,” DeRozan said. “We were down big on the road and a tough place to play in. We didn’t get rattled. We buckled down, the second group came in, brought the energy and we carried it over from there.

“For me, it’s just seeing the fight, which I knew coming here that everybody on the team had that chip on their shoulder and wasn’t going to lay down for no reason. And they showed it tonight.”

The Bulls outscored the Celtics 39-11 in the fourth quarter after trailing by 19 with 2:28 to play in the third. DeRozan finished with 37 points, LaVine added 26 and Dosunmu scored 14 in 22 minutes.

With LaVine dealing with the thumb injury and off to a cold start, did DeRozan consciously try to pick up the slack?

“Yeah, it’s just a sense for me,” he said. “Still incredible things he’s able to do with his thumb (hurt). The more he gets comfortable with it, the easier my job will be and vice versa. I try to make it easy on him as well and continue to learn each other.

“It’s definitely fun playing with him. He’s an incredible basketball player but even more of a human being. It’s fun to be out there, and whatever I can do to alleviate any type of thing for him and for my team, I definitely will do that.”

In a wildly entertaining game with no off switch, the Bulls couldn’t stop Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (28 points), while the Celtics couldn’t find a way to cool off DeRozan.

The late comeback echoed the ending of Thursday’s 104-103 loss to the New York Knicks. Alex Caruso’s steal led to an alley-oop slam from Dosunmu to Derrick Jones Jr., and a three-point play and a lay-in by LaVine cut the deficit to two with 8 minutes left.

They traded blows the rest of the way until DeRozan’s 3-pointer sealed it with a little more than a minute left.

“He’s incredibly poised,” coach Billy Donovan said of DeRozan. “He just does not get out of sorts.”

The same could be said for Dosunmu on Monday, in spite of the second-round pick from Illinois getting his first extended minutes off the bench.

“It definitely helps my confidence tremendously just being in this atmosphere,” he said. “Growing up, you watch Lakers-Celtics, Bulls-Celtics. Being here at TD Garden, playing against the great players they had and just competing, it’s fun as a competitor. I was excited just to be in the atmosphere.”

DeRozan wasn’t surprised at the way Dosnumu played. He has said from the start of camp that the Morgan Park alumnus is something special.

“The humbleness he carries himself with, along with the toughness, is definitely one of a kind,” DeRozan said. “He’s definitely the epitome of a Chicago kid. When you throw him out there on the road and he does something like this tonight, it shows who he is as a basketball player.”

Asked what this kind of game does for the team, Donovan said it’s something the Bulls can look to down the road on nights when things are going bad and players are asking themselves how they can come back.

“Today was a good recipe for how to do it,” he said.

DeRozan said nights like this were why he wanted to be a Bull.

“The conversation I had with the front office, I felt it, I sensed it, I understood it,” he said. “And as a competitor, that’s something I wanted to be part of. Being around the guys, the guys had that same type of mindset. To me, it didn’t just seem like words.”

It wasn’t just talk. On a wild Monday night at TD Garden, the Bulls put those words into action.

No matter how this season goes, LaVine said Monday it has been the most enjoyable stretch of his career.

“By far,” he said. “Especially because people know the struggles I’ve had through my career, and getting out to a hot start like this with a team that we know is really competitive, we’re all buying in and have a really close-knit team and have all bonded well.

“It’s the most fun I’ve had.”