Hornets squander third quarter comeback, lose to Bulls 115-109

The three-time National Basketball Association champion, though put the onus on himself and Jimmy Butler to do what they can to help the young players on the Chicago Bulls’ roster.

“People have a lot of things they can say about Fred [Hoiberg] as a coach”, he said, per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune.

Starting Rajon Rondo won’t do it either.

After Nikola Mirotic sounded like a player left for dead on Sunday, made inactive and not seeing any playing time for three straight games, the free agent-to-be was inserted into the Charlotte game in the first quarter, scoring nine quick points on three three-pointers.

Rondo set the tone immediately, and the unselfish play spread.

One obvious reason head coach Brad Stevens now plans to play his regulars normal minutes over the final 16 games: Boston, now trailing the Washington Wizards by a half-game for second place in the Eastern Conference, does not have much margin for error. “We’re not going to make the playoffs without him”.

Asked if the players are engaged in trying to reach the playoffs, Wade said, “You have to ask each individual that question”. Take into account that both the Pacers and Heat could be coming into that matchup under.500, and the Celtics will be clear favorites in 13 of their remaining 15 games, with a chance to be favored in even more, depending on how the next three games go before meeting the Wizards. “For everything he’s gone through in his career, to handle the situation like he did, and continue to battle. hopefully he’ll play well the rest of the year and inject that life back into our team”.

“I take my hat off to him”, Hoiberg said.

Bulls: Return home to face Grizzlies on Wednesday night. That was my only goal, get us off to a good lead. Look at our guys play. “They got to the middle of the paint a lot and kicked it out for 3s”.

Hitting 14 triples-five from Mirotic-was evidence that at least on occasion, the Bulls can play to Hoiberg’s vision. It looked really great even when we came in here and watched it at halftime. Where they were once the top ranked offensive rebounding team, they are 15th in offensive rebounding percentage over their last 10 games. Well, I haven’t connected with this team, because I know what the problems are. “Usually, when we’re good, we do what we have to do defensively and take advantage of our game plan, but we haven’t been doing that, especially for a full 48 minutes, so that has been hurting us”. Especially with a young group of guys. We did a decent job of it. “I want to forget about this game as soon as I can because I want to stay ready, stay aggressive”.

And with 16 games remaining, nobody knows if this is the final big adjustment before the season finishes out.

“Elite talent when you’re talking about (Andrew) Wiggins and (Karl-Anthony) Towns”, Stevens said. I’m supposed to be good at connecting. “But you never know”.