The Bulls had a lot go wrong Saturday night in Washington DC, but by nights end, another DeMar DeRozan buzzer beater pushed them past the Wizards.
“It’s just a habit of mine,” DeRozan said of the pump fake. “Just understanding a young guy was guarding me, helped out – and my pump fake was really the gather to get my feet together so I could just get enough lift to get the ball up. A lot of my shots all night were short. It was tough playing on a back-to-back, I kind of felt it throughout the game, and I just knew on that last shot, just get my legs under me and just give it a chance.
LaVine, like DeRozan, scored nine points of his eventual 35 points in the fourth quarter – and all were timely. At the 9:35 mark of the period, he hit a stepback midrange jumper out of a timeout that stymied a 6-0 Wizards run . With 5:48 to play, he hit a fallaway that cut it to 103-101. A minute-and-a-half later, he generated two free throws with a strong drive to keep the Bulls’ deficit at two. And with 1:43 remaining, he buried a pick-and-pop 3-pointer that put the Bulls in front 115-114.