Coby White's 42 leads Bulls past Hawks in the Play-in

Now you know. That’s what White hot looks like on the basketball court.

And it was pretty inevitable that the Atlanta Hawks were just about waving the white flag from moments into a Bulls end to end, wire to wire, on-to-Miami-again 131-116 victory led by Coby White’s career-most 42 points in Wednesday’s Eastern Conference NBA play-in tournament game. The Bulls now travel to Miami for a rematch of last year’s play-in game to qualify for the NBA playoffs. With the Bulls perhaps as a surprising favorite because Heat star Jimmy Butler suffered a knee injury in Miami’s Wednesday play-in loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The winner of Friday’s 6 p.m (CT) game meets the top-seeded Boston Celtics noon Sunday to open their Eastern Conference playoffs. Which means for the Bulls there’s still work to do. But their white whale, obsessive holy grail pursuit of the playoffs in the wake of this disappointing regular season is starting to show relentlessly impressive movement through this ocean of basketball predators.

This night because the Bulls had a great White, the theatrical point guard who danced around and through Atlanta defenses with whiplash crossover dribbles, numbing drives, calculated pullups and galvanizing three pointers that inevitably unleashed a white noise chorus of “Coby, Coby, Coby,” from more than 22,000 towel-waving and exuberant United Center fans.

No white knuckles this night as White applied the knockout punches.

“I didn’t come into the game saying I was going to put the team (on my back) or whatever,” the predictably humble White said afterward. “I just wanted to be aggressive and take what the defense gave me and just try to lead. Coming into the game, I just wanted to impact winning on both sides of the ball and that’s what I focused on, and tonight I was aggressive and things went my way.

“It was a dope feeling, a dope moment for that to happen,” White added about the honorifics washing down on him. “I’m thankful for it, I’m thankful for the fans. It felt like the playoffs; the place was rocking tonight and I’m definitely counting it as my career-high. It’s on the stat sheet right here.”

White’s declaration was because the play-in tournament comes between the regular season and playoffs, and obviously for a select group of teams. So statistics don’t count for the regular season. They do count in a separate NBA play-in category like playoff statistics. But no one will sweat the technicalities of this because of the significance of the moment, and the time being necessary for a Bulls White knight.

“He did all right; he can do a little bit better,” DeMar DeRozan cracked deadpan sitting beside White at the formal NBA postgame interview podium when asked to comment on White’s game.

You know, duh.

“He led us tonight,” agreed DeRozan, who kick started the rout with 11 first quarter points in the stunning 40-22 Bulls first quarter slaughter. “We talked before the game coming out being aggressive, trying to make a statement early and not wait (like often this season), and that’s what we did. Everything is on the table. We went through a lot this season with injuries, up and down season, a season none of us expected. Everything we went through this season for this moment here. (So) we have to carry that over to the next game as well, give ourselves a chance to be in the playoffs.

“I remember that plane ride home vividly,” DeRozan said about the late game meltdown play-in loss in Miami last year. “Everyone was frustrated; that feeling sucked. I know for me that was one thing on my mind when I realized we’re going back to Miami, not to have that feeling.”

It certainly will help the Bulls if Butler cannot play; preliminary media reports were he could have a sprained MCL, which could put him out until next season. For their part, the Bulls lost Alex Caruso in another bizarre play involving Andre Drummond. Drummond was sort of victimized in that reckless Torrey Craig lob-to-himself dunk last week. This time in the second quarter with the Hawks on a 14-0 run, Drummond getting back on defense with all his 290 pounds pancaked Caruso like a pulling guard. Caruso had to leave the game with a sprained ankle and could only briefly return. He said afterwards he hopes to play in Miami, which is vital for the Bulls the way Caruso helped set an early defensive tone pestering Young into five first quarter turnovers and 0-for-3 shooting.

“Caught me (stepping on my) right foot and the left one I tried to catch and tweaked my ankle a little,” said Caruso. "What I’ve been dealing with the last couple of weeks. My mindset is to play until my body tells me I can’t. Was kind of ineffective (afterward when I returned), so better those guys finish the game and they did a good job.”

Especially White with Nikola Vučević going for 24 points and 12 rebounds, DeRozan adding 22 points and Ayo Dosunmu 19. Javonte Green off the bench helping on Young with Caruso hurt added 10 points with some nasty slam dunks.

“We’ve got guys on the team when the lights come on and they are bright they step up to the challenge,” said Caruso. “I’ve had moments like that in my career; DeMar countess numbers. Vooch has played playoff basketball, Ayo in the short time he’s stepped up and helped us. I think that’s one of great strengths that we do have guys who can go off any given night. Coby’s put in the work. There’s talk of Most Improved and I think he rightfully deserves that. It’s not surprising for us because we know how good he can be and that’s how confident we want him to play all the time.”

And so all across the board the Bulls controlled this game, matching Atlanta’s 11 threes, which was the one potential Achilles heel for the Bulls. Then with Atlanta missing two of their best defenders and rebounders in Onyeka Okongwua and Saddiq Bey, the Bulls owned the boards 47-34, shot a staggering 56.8% overall with 42% on threes (the Hawks were 29.7%) and the Bulls had a dam burst of 72 inside points with mostly White, but also Dosunmu and Vučević, the latter with his spins and drop steps, crashing the Hawks in the paint.

“It was really important for us against them because we did not get (to the rim) as much (in the April 1 loss in the United Center), and we knew they were probably going to get the volume of three-point shots up that they do with (Bogdan) Bogdanović, (Dejounte) Murray and Trae Young and even (De’Andre) Hunter,” said Bulls coach Billy Donovan. “So for us we needed to get downhill and attack the paint, and I think we did a better job of that and certainly Coby was a catalyst and Ayo getting downhill, as well.”

It was a thing of beauty, at least for the Bulls, from the jump with a 16-2 close to the first quarter and that suddenly massive 18-point lead, the arena rocking. The Bulls were shooting 62% and scoring every which way but loose, followups, threes, retrieving loose balls, drives and dunks.

The Hawks are a mess pretty much because of Young and his poor defense and overweening ball domination. He was one of four Hawks to score at least 20 points with 22, Murray leading with 30. But the Bulls drivers constantly sought out Young over screens because of his poor defense. Young had by far the poorest Atlanta plus-minus and shot 4-of-12 with six turnovers. Though that’s not the Bulls problem.

It seemed the Bulls might have one briefly when the Hawks made that second quarter run with Murray leading the way. But after the Hawks moved within 40-36 in a flash, it was flash Dosunmu with a driving score as the Bulls pushed the ball out of the backcourt whenever they could against historically poor Atlanta transition defense. The Bulls with White getting one of his two steals led DeRozan for a run out slam dunk and foul for a 14-point lead. Atlanta worked its way back within 73-67 in a defense optional first half after Caruso left.

Then with the Hawks trapping DeRozan, he helped get the ball moving with nine of the Bulls 27 assists, and Hawks defenders with heads spinning like they were in Beetlejuice. White had several drives like he was a bit of Jason Williams, Kyrie Irving and Bob Cousy, and the fans had seen enough, and came the third quarter roars for, “Coby! Coby! Coby!”

The Bulls led 110-92 after three quarters with White adding 14 more in the fourth quarter, back breaking for the Hawks with ankle breaking by White.

“Just grateful to be where I am,” said White. “That first playoff series I had in my career (against Milwaukee) didn’t go how I wanted it to go. Last year I played better in the play-in.”

And now he’s adding to that.

There’s a famous verse from the English philosopher G. K. Chesterton: “God paints in many colors, but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when he paints in white.”

It was a divine performance from Coby.

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