The Chicago Bulls suffered one of their worst losses of the season on Tuesday night. They lost to the Detroit Pistons while shooting a horrific 2-of-29 from behind the three-point line. And on Wednesday night, they had to play a second night of a back-to-back against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
Despite the quick turnaround, the Bulls managed to scrape out a win in double overtime. Their double-big lineup played a huge part, and so did Onurlap Bitim, who was on a two-way contract with Chicago but was recently converted to a standard deal.
Bitim gave the Bulls solid minutes off the bench, and after the game, he spoke about the support he got from his teammates. (H/t Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times)
“Deebo [DeMar DeRozan] told me he was proud of me,” Bitim said. “That means a lot to me. I grew up watching him. He was one of my idols. And now we’re on the court together. We won together. Hearing those words from him was a really huge blessing … him, Coby [White], Ayo [Dosunmu], Vooch [Nikola Vucevic], I’m very lucky because I have teammates and coaches like them.”
In 27:33 of action off the pine, he put up 10 points and six rebounds on 3-of-4 shooting from the floor and 2o-f-2 shooting from deep.
