Celtics fall to last second shot in Chicago, 114-111

Just 24 hours removed from stealing a double overtime win in Brooklyn, the Celtics took the Bulls to the very brink but they couldn’t steal another victory from the jaws of defeat, falling to Chicago 114-111 on Saturday night. 

Boston pushed the Bulls all night, with Jaylen Brown (33 points) tying the game at 111 with a coast-to-coast layup with 14 seconds left. It ultimately just wasn’t enough as Kevin Huerter (12 points) knocked down a corner three with 0.2 seconds left to clinch a win on Derrick Rose Night. 

Colby White led the way for Chicago, scoring 22 points with five triples. The Bulls as a whole shot lights out from deep for most of the night, shooting 21-45 from three. 

For Boston, Anfernee Simons contributed off the bench with 21 points on 8-for-16 shooting. 

Heading into Derrick Rose night in Chicago, the energy certainly shouldn’t have been on Boston’s side after arriving in the Windy City at 4 a.m. last night. That said, the Cs, led by Brown, went stride for stride with the Bulls to open Saturday’s game. 

Chicago started hot from three, nailing four triples in the first four minutes to grab an early 16-13 lead midway through the first. 

After taking the Bulls initial punch, Brown — who played 46 minutes on Friday night — paced the Cs with an early 11 points in the first quarter. 

Coming off the bench, Simons provided a spark to fuel a 10-2 run early in the second quarter. Simons finished the half with 12 points on 5-for-11 shooting. 

Derrick White continued to struggle to find a rhythm with his shot, finishing the half 2-for-9 from the floor, but as usual the guard was finding ways to impact the game in other ways. White recorded three assists — with a nice feed finding Jordan Walsh all alone under the hoop for an easy slam to help build an eight point second quarter lead — and also tallied a steal and a block 

While offense was tough to come by throughout the rest of the lineup, defensively the Cs were disrupting Chicago, forcing eight first half turnovers to make up for a rough 29.2% shooting performance from deep. 

Brown did continue to show fresh legs, beating the buzzer at the end of the second quarter with a floater to end the first half with 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting. 

In the third quarter, Boston started to show the signs of a team fading deep into the second night of a back to back, and it also didn’t help that the Bulls re-caught fire from deep. Chicago jumped out to a 7-0 run to open the third to retake the lead, with Jalen Smith hitting the first of six Bulls triples in the frame. 

From there, Colby White took over the game, hitting a trio of threes as Chicago built up an eight point lead midway through the third. Colby White finished the quarter with 13 points to bring his total up to 22 points in 27 minutes. 

The Bulls showed no signs of slowing down in the fourth, as despite turning the ball over 10 times, shooting over 50% from three kept them at arms length from the Cs.

Derrick White, despite being in the midst of a brutal shooting slump, found something to light a spark in his game as the guard connected on two triples and a two to keep pace with the Bulls. White also was able to dish it out with a pair of assists to Neemias Queta and Walsh to take a 100-99 lead.   

The Bulls hot shooting didn’t last in crunch time as Boston continued to stay neck-and-neck in the final minutes. Chicago had a chance to put the game away up two in the final minute, but Smith whiffed on a put-back dunk and Brown went the distance to finish a contested layup and tie the game at 111. 

Ultimately, the Bulls’ shooting did come back in the most crucial moment as Huerter knocked down a game-winning triple with 0.2 seconds remaining. 

Now Boston will return home for a home-stand beginning on Monday night against the Portland Trailblazers at 8:00 p.m.