at halftime,” Hoiberg said. “It was one of those situations where we weren’t getting back in transition, we were turning the ball over and we weren’t rebounding — the three things we had to do to stay in this game we were not doing. We went out there in the second half and turned things around and really battled and fought.
“I just told them, ‘If we go out with that type of mentality, if we go out with that type of fight, we’re going to stay in this thing.’ If we’re going to play like we did in the first half, we’ve got no chance.”
The Bulls trailed 59-40 at halftime and were down by 12 heading into the fourth. There was no reason to think the Bulls would make it a game, but they kept chipping away and inching closer.
Early in the final quarter, the Bulls made up some ground with an unusual lineup of Mirotic, Valentine, Zipser, Michael Carter-Williams and Joffrey Lauvergne. Lauvergne’s hook shot brought the Bulls within 91-87 with 6:16 left.
Washington stretched the lead to 7 a few times, but a Mirotic 3-pointer made the score 104-102 with 1:23 remaining, then a step-back 3 from Butler closed the margin to 108-107 with 39.6 seconds on the clock.
The Bulls needed a defensive stop and nearly got one. Bradley Beal (24 points) missed a running jumper, the Bulls grabbed the rebound and Valentine had Otto Porter Jr. boxed out, but when Porter jumped and flipped over Valentine’s back, a foul was called on the Bulls and Porter hit both free throws with 18.4 seconds on the clock.
“I thought Denzel really did a good job fighting for position, to go in there and battle and get that rebound,” Hoiberg said. “It’s unfortunate it was called. I’ll leave it at that.”
Butler looked for a 3-point opening, ran some clock, drove away from Lopez and launched an unguarded 3-point shot that missed. Butler was moving toward the basket and he’s usually more accurate when pulling up or stepping back.
The Bulls are back in action Saturday at the United Center against Utah.
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