White takes control, but Bulls head to break with another narrow loss

Last game before the all-star break, the first thing to look for is if any teams are mentally laying on an exclusive beach somewhere in the Caribbean.

The Bulls passed that test Wednesday, jumping out to a 17-point lead in the first half at Cleveland. But the Cavs fought back and got it done at the end, winning 108-105 for their seventh straight win over the Bulls.

So the Bulls will hit the break with a 26-29 record, good for ninth place in the East. They’re both 4½ games behind sixth-place Indiana and 4½ ahead of 11th-place Brooklyn, which would be the first team out of the play-in tournament.

But as mentioned here many times, the ultimate ending to this season is irrelevant. The Bulls will reach the summer with a couple of huge positives, along with a large cloud hanging over the franchise.

The good news is obviously the improvement by Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu. White shook off a couple of relatively quiet games to deliver 32 points on 11 of 16 shooting against the Cavaliers.

During the fourth quarter, White had a rare on-court altercation, exchanging mild shoves with Georges Niang before the two went nose to nose. On consecutive plays, Niang seemed to catch White with an inadvertent elbow on a drive to the basket, then White was dribbling and took a bump from Niang on the other end. Both players were given technical fouls.

This year’s player development is the best news for the Bulls since Jimmy Butler took a jump from No. 30 draft pick to all-star roughly a decade ago.

During this four-game road trip, the Bulls had narrow losses to both Cleveland and Orlando, which were playing at full-strength. The Bulls are hoping to get Patrick Williams back after the break, which should help. Next season, in theory, they could add Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball and a lottery pick to the current group.

LaVine is obviously the cloud hanging over the team’s future. He’s out for the season after having foot surgery and the Bulls’ best path would be to trade him. But that won’t be possible if no team is willing to take on his max contract, which runs for three more years. Then obviously, Ball’s health and usefulness will be uncertain after he’s missed more than two years recovering from three knee surgeries.

But with player development on the rise, the best thing the Bulls can do after the break might be to force-feed their young forwards, Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips, some minutes. It could help their development and result in more breaks for White and DeMar DeRozan, who rank 1-2 in the NBA in total minutes played.

Meanwhile, White has become the player the Bulls’ hoped LaVine would be. An adjustment in this game was the ball in White’s hands down the stretch. His 3-pointer tied the score at 103-103 with 1:03 remaining.

Then trailing by 1, White drove into the lane and tried to dump a pass to Nikola Vucevic, but the ball bounced off his hands and out of bounds for a turnover.

After an exchange of free throws, White had a decent look at a long-range 3 for the tie, but it bounced off the rim as time expired.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence in Coby and I think he needs to be in those situations,” coach Billy Donovan told reporters after the game. “The last play when we were down by 1 (the turnover), I know him, he’s going to learn from that and grow from it and get better from it. It’s good that he was in that situation.”

Donovan used the big starting lineup once again with both Vucevic and Andre Drummond, while Alex Caruso came off the bench. Vucevic scored just 9 points on 4-of-16 shooting. DeRozan was the Bulls’ second-leading scorer with 24 points, while Drummond grabbed 15 rebounds.

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