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3 takeaways from the Chicago Bulls' crushing overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks

The Chicago Bulls had the win in the palm of their hands until Hawks’ rookie AJ Griffin took it away.

Stephen Beslic

© Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
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The Chicago Bulls had the victory in their hands, only for Atlanta rookie AJ Griffin to snatch it away after scoring the game-winning layup with 0.5 of a second remaining in overtime for a 123-122 Hawks victory. It was a crushing loss for the Bulls, revealing several key takeaways.

Lackluster in clutch situations

The Bulls' record may indicate they're 11-15, but diving deeper reveals the team is just 3-10 in "clutch" games, defined as games that are within five points in the last five minutes. This is where Chicago has been lacking, and it was on full display against Atlanta when the Bulls' defense failed to come up with a stop when it mattered most.

Ironically, the play that the Hawks ran on that game-winning possession was the same one that the Milwaukee Bucks used to defeat the Bulls in the 2015 NBA Playoffs.

The common denominator on both plays was Joe Prunty, a lead assistant coach of the Hawks, who drew that play up when he was still part of the Bucks' coaching staff under Jason Kidd in 2015.

Derrick Jones Jr. and Coby White come up big off the bench

Two reserves closed the game out: Derrick Jones Jr. and Coby White. With Alex Caruso missing the game and Ayo Dosunmu exiting with an injury, the Bulls turned to its reserves, and the two players delivered several crucial plays down the stretch, including this connection for an alley-oop slam:

Jones had a shot at winning the game in regulation after he was fouled on a putback attempt with less than a second remaining. However, he made the first but missed the second to send the game to the extra session.

Zach LaVine plays his second back-to-back of the season

Now in the pink of health after having to load manage early on due to knee surgery in the offseason, Zach LaVine played in his second back-to-back set of the season and looked spry. He finished with 21 points on 9-of-16 shooting. However, he turned the ball over a whopping seven times and shot two ill-advised pull-up three-pointers in overtime.

With their brief winning streak snapped, the Bulls will try to right the ship against the New York Knicks on Wednesday.

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Stephen Beslic
STEPHEN BESLIC

Stephen Beslic is a writer on Sports Illustrated's FanNation Network. Stephen played basketball from the age of 10 and graduated from Faculty of Economic and Business in Zagreb, Croatia, majoring in Marketing.

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