DENVER — The Chicago Bulls were exhausted.
They couldn’t hide it. Less than 21 hours had passed since the final buzzer sounded on a demoralizing double-overtime loss to the Utah Jazz. The starters were gassed. Their legs were gone before they started. The team landed in Denver already prepared to hand the bulk of the game over to their bench unit.
But the Bulls also needed a win. Badly. Five losses in a row had piled up into a heap of frustration, the kind that seeped deep into the locker room. Losing is tiring in its own way. It weighs on a team, growing exponentially heavier.
In an improbable 130-127 win over the Denver Nuggets, one form of exhaustion won out over the other.
“We needed to get back in the win column,” guard Jevon Carter said after the win. “Super bad.”
The formula for success was as simple — and grueling — as it has been all season. The Bulls crashed the boards and forced second chances and pounded the ball into the paint. Jalen Smith scraped and clawed at Nikola Jokić, earning boos and jeers from the Denver crowd as he frustrated the former MVP. Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips stood tall when the Nuggets launched a 3-on-1 advantage in transition, leaping and swatting at shots until they finally batted the ball back into Bulls’ hands.
The Nuggets threw plenty of finishers in the final quarter. That’s a given with players like Jokić and Jamal Murray, who racked up a combined 70 points. But unlike in past losses to behemoth stars, the Bulls had counters of their own Monday night — clutch 3-pointers from Nikola Vučević and Kevin Huerter, a brutal dunk in transition from Ayo Dosunmu.
Chicago Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu dunks as Denver Nuggets guards Peyton Watson and Jamal Murray look on with Bulls guard Kevin Huerter in the second half on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The Bulls don’t always make sense. They drop losses to bottom-ranked teams. They let opponents blow by them off the dribble and rip off double-digit runs with abandon.
But the thing about this version of the Bulls is that they don’t fade away in games. They’re in more games than they’re not. They’ve finished nine games this season in the clutch — within five points at five minutes remaining — and won five of them. With a losing skid snapped, the Bulls are back above .500. For now, that speaks loudly enough.
The Bulls don’t need to make sense. They just need to keep winning.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
1. Backed by the bench.
Chicago Bulls center Jalen Smith is ushered to the bench after his shoulder was injured while guarding Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić in the second half on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The Bulls outlasted the Nuggets by leaning heavily on their bench, which entered the game with a higher charge after barely factoring in overtime minutes on Sunday. The Bulls bench outscored the Nuggets secondary rotation 66-9 as all five starting players registered a negative plus-minus score despite finishing with a win.
This makes sense, of course, when an opposing team’s starting unit includes Jokić, Murray and Aaron Gordon. The Nuggets were less deep than normal due to the injury absence of Christian Braun, which placed a heavier strain specifically on their backcourt backup.
The Bulls bench unit built the lead up to 18 points in the second quarter. It took the Nuggets starting unit just under five minutes to completely wipe that advantage away, carrying a one-point advantage into the second half after closing the second quarter on a 24-8 run. But the bench unit continuously stood up against combinations of Nuggets stars, giving the Bulls starters just enough break to close the game out in the clutch.
Jalen Smith led the initial effort off the bench, tallying 16 points and eight rebounds while shouldering hefty minutes against Jokić. Smith found success early with his 3-point shot, but his ability to match up with Jokić changed the course of the game as coach Billy Donovan gave the bench longer rotations against the Denver starters.
The Bulls suffered a blow in the third quarter when Smith injured his shoulder attempting to reach in against Jokić, who responded by hooking the center’s arm and tossing him to the ground to draw a foul. Smith exited and then returned to play for fewer than three minutes for the rest of the game.
Ayo Dosunmu led bench scoring with 21 points in an efficient night of shooting, going 7-for-8 from the floor and 4-for-5 from the free-throw line. Donovan has opted to bring Dosunmu off the bench despite extensive injuries to the guard unit throughout the season, preferring to use the guard as a catalyst for the secondary unit.
2. Hot and cold behind the arc.
For the first half of the game, it seemed the Bulls could beat the Nuggets on shooting alone.
The Bulls went 7-for-14 from behind the arc in the first half alone, including a pair apiece from Matas Buzelis and Jevon Carter. The Bulls were especially prolific from above the break, hitting five of their 3-pointers in the first quarter from well above the free throw line.
That shooting crashed back down to earth in the second half, where the Bulls shot only 7-for-27 from deep. Kevin Huerter and Carter were the only Bulls players immune to this second-half cool-off, combining for five of the team’s seven 3-pointers in the half.
3. Coby White sits out.
The Bulls welcomed the return of Coby White in Sunday’s loss to the Utah Jazz after he missed the first 11 games of the season with a calf strain. The guard blew past his 24-minute playing time restriction in his season debut and was summarily sidelined for Monday’s game in the second half of a back-to-back.
Guard Tre Jones also missed Monday’s game with a left ankle injury. Although the Bulls did not shoot around Monday morning, Jones went through a workout on his own in an attempt to be cleared for the game. The Bulls remain hopeful that he could be made available for the final game of the road trip in Portland.
Center Zach Collins is beginning to ramp up after undergoing surgery for a fracture in his left wrist. Collins will need to rebuild significant mobility and strength in his wrist before he is cleared to play. Donovan said he believes Collins could begin practicing next week after the Bulls complete a home back-to-back against the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards, although he admitted that is an optimistic timeline for the center’s recovery.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/18/chicago-bulls-denver-nuggets-snap-streak/