Nuggets from my notebook following the Bulls’ 91-86 win over Atlanta (2024)

The baby Bulls are on the board! Wait, is that a good thing…?

1. Lauri Markkanen continues to impress. But to this point, he’s done so in different ways. In Game 1, he posted 17 and eight two nights after learning he’d be the team’s starting power forward. In Game 2, he notched his first double-double, a 13 and 12 performance while holding his own against Pau Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Gay. In Game 3, he buried 5-of-8 3-pointers and scored 17 of his 19 points in the first half. In Game 4 on Thursday night, he recorded his second double-double, scoring 14 points while grabbing 12 rebounds. That’s not all. He shook off an awful shooting night, adjusted his game to stop shooting and start driving and then trusted his shot when the Bulls needed it most. Very impressive performance by the 20-year-old rookie.
2. In the game’s first 70 seconds, Markkanen hit his first shot, a 3-pointer, and pulled down a defensive rebound. It felt like the Big Finn was headed for a big night. The rest of his first half, however, was largely forgettable. He missed his next 3, got whistled for a foul, missed a driving layup, missed another 3, then another layup, and then turned it over. That was just in the next 5 1/2 minutes. At halftime, Markkanen sat on three points on 1-for-8 shooting.
3. After halftime, Markkanen came out attacking the basket. He got an and-one dunk and two driving layups to get himself going. Here’s what Markkanen said when asked his strategy in the third quarter: “Just attack the rim and help the team in as many ways as possible. My shot wasn’t falling so that (wasn’t) helping us. But of course, if I’ve got a wide open shot then I’ve got to take it. So I just tried to switch it up and get to the rim.”
4. Markanen’s final bucket was the biggest of the game and the biggest of his career to date. The 3-pointer came off a pick-and-pop with Jerian Grant and gave the Bulls a 90-86 lead with 48.5 seconds remaining. “I’m not afraid of the big moment,” Markkanen said. “Even though my shot wasn’t falling early on, I still believe every shot I shoot I believe it’s going in. So it was just a normal shot.”
5. Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg on Markkanen’s big make: “Lauri was reading the way that the defender was guarding him. He was coming up on the inside. So Lauri slipped out of it. It was a great read on his part. Not only did he have the shot but he had driving lanes. We ran that quite a bit for him in the fourth quarter. When you can play through a 20-year-old kid like that, it’s pretty impressive for him to go out and have that type of game when his shot wasn’t falling.”
6. Robin Lopez on Markkanen’s final bucket: “That’s big time. We weren’t surprised about that. He knows what he can do out there. We all believe in him. He has the utmost confidence in himself, which is awesome. So we weren’t surprised that went in at all…You’ve seen the shots he’s been making. I’ve seen those shots go in in practice. So we want him to pull that shot. We know that’s going to go in more often than not.”
7. Justin Holiday on Markkanen’s early performance: “He’s very poised. I think it’s the environment and culture that we have here. He doesn’t have to look over his shoulder. He doesn’t have to worry about anything. He can just go and play his game.”
8. Prior to Markkanen’s shot, the Bulls were on the verge of letting a winnable game get away. Atlanta, playing without Dennis Schroder and Ersan Ilyasova, used an 8-2 spurt to turn an 83-78 deficit into an 86-85 advantage with 1:48 to play. Holiday converted a reverse layup off a backdoor feed from Lopez to put the Bulls back on top, and after Hawks forward Mike Muscala missed a 3 the Bulls desperately needed a bucket. Markkanen provided it. “I knew I was going to be open,” Markkanen said. “I knew before I got the ball that I was going to shoot it.”
9. I found it interesting that Markkanen responded the way he did Thursday night after a reporter asked Hoiberg at shootaround Thursday morning whether Markkanen is receiving too much too soon. Here was Hoiberg’s response. “He’s a really tough-minded kid,” Hoiberg said. “You look at what he’s been able to do at this stage of his career, to be thrust into that role right away shows he’s got a very good mental toughness about him. He’s ready for it. Some guys come into this league, they’re not quite ready to go. But you look at what he’s done being thrust into the starting role at the last minute, it’s pretty impressive.”
10. Lopez was a huge factor in this one. He was the Bulls’ offense in the opening period, scoring 10 of the team’s 18 first-quarter points. He finished with 16 points, eight boards, four assists and two blocked shots in 36 minutes. He was a game-high plus-12. “I’m out there trying to do whatever I can to help my team,” Lopez said. “I’ve taken on a bit of a bigger role. I wanted to attack the basket, try to find the open guy.”
11. The following exchange between Lopez and a reporter then ensued: Q: Ever take 10 shots in a quarter? Lopez: “That’s a good question.” Reporter: Grade school? Lopez: “No, no. I had Brook on my team. I wasn’t taking close to 10 shots with Brook on my team.”
12. Lopez also had a picture of Glamour-Shots styled Britney Spears photograph positioned in his locker. It was a tad creepy, but of course, Lopez had a perfectly good explanation. “I found her at the Air Canada Centre as I was walking out,” he said. “So we’ll always have Britney looking down on us.”
13. David Nwaba gave the Bulls a big lift off the bench. In his 24th career game, he posted the first double-double of his career, scoring 15 points with 11 rebounds. He made 5-of-8 shots in 23 minutes. His energy and hustle became the blueprint for how the Bulls would battle through a rough shooting night. By halftime, Nwaba had seven points and five boards. He was all over the floor. If a shot went up, he was crashing into the paint looking to scrap for a rebound. When he got opportunities to score, he capitalized. “It was a great feeling,” Nwaba said. “I just had to stay ready when my name was called and just come out aggressive.”
14. Hoiberg on Nwaba: “David was terrific. In the first half we couldn’t get anything going. He got us a couple of fast break baskets, got us an and-one just by rebounding the ball and taking off in transition. He’s always going to give you a hard-nosed defensive effort. But for him to hit a 3 and get himself to the free throw line, he was huge when everybody was struggling in that first half.”
15. The teams started the game a combined 11-for-30…and it was as brutal as it sounds. The halftime score was 39-37, Hawks. Both teams were shooting 35 percent.
16. Just 7-for-32 shooting from long range for Chicago.
17. The Bulls took pride in winning ugly. “It was a big win for us,” said Holiday. “How we went about doing it. Being down in the fourth. Coming back getting the lead and securing it and taking care of the win was big, especially when we didn’t shoot that well. That’s something that we need to know that we can do is win games without shooting well. And I think we did a great job with that.”
18. Lopez along those same lines: “Nobody has been able to really question our effort so far. But to put together a stretch at the end like that, that’s big for us. That’s a good step for us.”
19. The Kay Felder experience looks like it’ll be a roller coaster. After his 13-point, four-assist night at Cleveland, Felder couldn’t stop fouling in this one. He was whistled for three fouls in his first 4 1/2 minutes. He finished with two points on 1-for-5 shooting to go with two assists and four fouls in 12 minutes. Rough night.
20. Grant had one of the worst halves of basketball I’ve ever seen from a point guard. In 20 first-half minutes, he had virtually no impact. At the half, he had one point, two rebounds, two assists and two turnovers. But he bounced back nicely in the second half, when he scored 10 points with five assists and zero turnovers.
21. Can someone explain to me why Grant doesn’t look to score more? In that first half especially — but also for much of the game — he wasn’t close to being a scoring threat.
22. Markkanen got his first assist! It came on a beautiful turn and toss from the free throw line to the right corner for a Holiday 3 midway through the second quarter.
23. Surely I’m not the only one who has never heard of Josh Magette. Felder’s lone bucket came against whoever he is.
24. Dewayne Dedmon tipped in not one but two baskets for the Bulls.
25. It seemed the turnover game would once again hurt the Bulls. They had six in the first quarter, which led to five Hawks points. Atlanta, meanwhile, had only two, neither of which the Bulls converted into points. But Chicago had just 10 the rest of the way, only seven in the second half. The final tally: the Hawks scored 13 points off 16 Bulls turnovers; the Bulls scored eight points off nine Hawks turnovers.
26. The Bulls atoned for the turnover discrepancy on the glass and at the foul line. Chicago out-rebounded Atlanta 62-40. The Bulls had a 17-7 advantage in offensive rebounding. Chicago also attempted a season-high 29 free throws, making 22. Atlanta got to the stripe just 13 times, making 11.
27. Finally, multiple reports say Nikola Mirotic wants the Bulls’ front office to decide: him or Bobby Portis. A sticky situation took a turn for the worse Thursday night as reports surfaced that Mirotic’s representatives recently delivered Bulls management a “me-or-him” ultimatum. Of course, this can only end one way — with the Bulls trading one of the two for a second-round pick and then selling said pick for cash.
28. Up next: Oklahoma City on Saturday.

(Top photo: Matt Marton/USA TODAY Sports)

Darnell Mayberry is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Chicago Bulls. He spent 12 years at The Oklahoman, where he handled the Thunder beat before moving into an editor’s role. Prior to The Oklahoman, Darnell covered the University of Akron men's basketball, preps and recruiting at the Akron Beacon Journal. He is the author of "100 Things Thunder Fans Should Know And Do Before They Die." Follow Darnell on Twitter @DarnellMayberry