Finally: Giddey's Triple-Double and a 27-0 Avalanche Bury the Bucks 120-97, Ending Chicago's 11-Game Nightmare

Josh Giddey had 20 points, 14 rebounds, and 10 assists for his eighth triple-double of the season, Collin Sexton added 22 points off the bench on 9-of-14 shooting, and the Chicago Bulls used a 27-0 run bridging the third and fourth quarters to beat the Milwaukee Bucks 120-97 on Sunday afternoon at the United Center — snapping an 11-game losing streak that had matched the third-worst in franchise history. Matas Buzelis contributed 20 points on 7-of-15 shooting with four three-pointers, Leonard Miller came off the bench for 15 points on 6-of-8 from the field, and Chicago finished with 51% shooting from the floor, 34 assists, 14 steals, and 8 blocks in one of its most complete performances of the season. The Bulls outscored Milwaukee 50 to 26 in the paint and scored 22 fast break points — turning a 66-51 halftime deficit into a 23-point final victory.

Chicago improved to 25-36, snapping a skid that had encompassed the entirety of February — the Bulls had gone 0-11 in the calendar month and had not won since January 31 in Miami. Bobby Portis led Milwaukee with 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting in his 24 minutes, and Cam Thomas added 15 off the bench, but the Bucks — without Giannis Antetokounmpo for the 15th consecutive game due to a strained right calf — shot just 37% from the field, 28% from three, and missed 17 consecutive shots during the decisive fourth-quarter stretch. Milwaukee falls to 26-33 and has now lost two straight by a combined 46 points.

Down Fifteen, Then Up Twenty-Three

For almost three quarters, this looked like it was going to be another entry in the February ledger of pain. Milwaukee jumped out to an early lead in the first, with Ryan Rollins going 4-of-4 from the field for 9 first-quarter points and Myles Turner hitting two early three-pointers off Kyle Kuzma assists to push the Bucks ahead. A 17-0 Milwaukee run in the second quarter ballooned the Bulls' deficit to 16 points, and Chicago went into halftime trailing 66-51 — the same familiar position this team had found itself in all month, only this time against a Bucks team playing without its best player. It was 89-81 late in the third quarter when Tre Jones hit two free throws to light the fuse.

What happened next was the most sustained stretch of basketball this roster has played since the new group came together. Buzelis hit a floating shot to open the fourth quarter and tie the game at 89. Sexton then gave Chicago a 91-89 lead with a pull-up jumper just under a minute in — the Bulls' first lead since the opening minutes — and the United Center found its full voice. Milwaukee went ice cold. The Bucks missed 17 consecutive field goal attempts as Chicago's defense swarmed every possession, and the only Bucks points during the decisive run came when Kevin Porter Jr. made two free throws with 5:51 remaining. Ousmane Dieng finally ended the drought with a basket at the 3:12 mark, but by then the run had reached 27-0 and the game was over. Scottie Pippen watched from a suite alongside Bears head coach Ben Johnson, who drew a warm ovation when he was shown on the videoboard and delighted the crowd by feigning to pull off his shirt — a callback to his locker room celebration after the Bears' win at Philadelphia. By the time the final horn sounded, the margin was 23 points, and eleven games of misery had come to an end.

Everything Working at Once

The stat that defines what this roster is supposed to look like at its best is 34 assists on 43 made baskets — a 79% assist rate that reflects a team sharing the ball with genuine fluency rather than forcing individual creation. Giddey was the engine of it. His 10 assists came in 32 minutes, and he orchestrated everything from the pick-and-roll, in the post, and on the break — including multiple alley-oop connections with Nick Richards that resulted in some of the most emphatic baskets of the night. Giddey's 15th triple-double as a Bull ties Scottie Pippen for second on the franchise's all-time list, and it came on a night where the playmaking was more important than the scoring: Chicago generated 20 points off Milwaukee's 19 turnovers, scored 22 fast break points, and doubled up the Bucks in the paint 50 to 26. These are not the numbers of a team that got lucky. They are the numbers of a team that executed a specific style of basketball for 48 minutes.

The bench trio of Sexton, Miller, and Richards deserves its own sentence. In the fourth quarter alone — with the Bucks' starters being outrun and outcompeted on every possession — Sexton finished +22, Miller +23, and Richards +20. Sexton shot 9-of-14 from the field for the game and was the most dangerous offensive piece off the bench, hitting pull-up jumpers and driving lanes in a way that gave Chicago a second scoring option that didn't require Buzelis to carry every possession. Miller was relentless — 6-of-8 from the field, two blocks, four assists, and constant cutting and activity that kept Milwaukee's help defense scrambling. Richards was precisely what his role requires: 5-of-9 from the field for 11 points, seven rebounds, and two blocks in 27 minutes, giving the Bulls a reliable interior presence on both ends. When those three are this good together, this team has answers that it didn't have a month ago.

Buzelis had his fingerprints on the most memorable individual moment of the game — a dunk over Bobby Portis that sent the building into full noise — and he finished with 20 points on 4-of-9 shooting from three in 32 minutes. His +3 for the night doesn't capture his impact; in a game where the first half went sideways, he stayed aggressive and created enough in the second half to keep possession chains alive. Guerschon Yabusele was effective in a complementary role — 12 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals in 23 minutes, bringing defensive physicality and some key free-throw conversions during the third-quarter comeback. The 14 team steals and 8 blocks speak to a defensive identity that has been inconsistent all season but was present and accounted for on Sunday. After eleven games of running out of answers, this team finally had one for everything Milwaukee tried.

Looking Ahead

The Bulls host the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night at the United Center at 7:00 p.m. CT. Oklahoma City is one of the best teams in the Western Conference, so this will be a stiff test of whether Sunday's performance represents a turning point or a one-game outlier. Chicago will need another complete effort — ball movement, defensive activity, and consistent execution from the same bench pieces who delivered Sunday — to have a chance. The status of any injured Bulls players will bear watching before tip-off.

One win. After eleven losses, one win is just that — one win. This roster still sits at 25-36, still outside meaningful playoff position, and still has more questions than answers about what it can sustain over a full game, let alone a full stretch of the schedule. But Sunday offered something the previous eleven games did not: a look at what this group can be when its personnel coheres, its defense takes over, and its best playmaker produces a performance worthy of franchise history. Giddey's name is next to Pippen's on that list now. Maybe that's where things start.