Bulls at Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder will try to avenge one of their more surprising losses of the season when they host the Chicago Bulls on Monday. The Bulls picked up just their sixth victory when they held off the Thunder 114-112 at home earlier this month, igniting a 1-3 swoon for Oklahoma City.
Behind 33 points from Paul George, the Thunder snapped out of the funk with a 110-104 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday to begin a two-game homestand. "We lost two straight, and it was good for us to come home and get one," George, who is shooting 57.1 percent over his last four games, told reporters. "That was big for us." The Bulls are coming off another surprising victory, erasing a 21-point deficit at San Antonio on Saturday before picking up a 98-93 win over the streaking Spurs. Since its embarrassing 133-77 loss to the Boston Celtics on Dec. 8, Chicago has held its last three opponents to an average of 99.3 points.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, WGN (Chicago), FS Oklahoma
ABOUT THE BULLS (7-23): Saturday's comeback win was even more impressive given the absence of leading scorer Zach LaVine, who will also miss the visit to Oklahoma City due to an ankle injury. "I thought in the second half we drove the ball better," coach Jim Boylen told reporters. "Lauri [Markkanen] got downhill. Kris [Dunn] got downhill. Defensively, I thought we were pretty good. I'd have to look at the film, but it looked like we knocked a lot of balls loose. We were flying around pretty good." Dunn scored a season-high 24 points in his third game since returning from a knee injury and Markkanen added 23 in his seventh contest after sitting out the first two months with an elbow sprain.
ABOUT THE THUNDER (18-10): Former MVP Russell Westbrook continues to have shooting issues from time to time and finished 4-for-17 from the floor against the Clippers, but he made up for it with an all-around effort that left him with 12 assists, nine rebounds and six steals. "The hustle plays, diving on the floor, the deflections that he generated, and by being disciplined doing that - it wasn't like he was running around helter skelter," Thunder coach Billy Donovan told reporters of Westbrook. "He was really disciplined. I thought it was a game where, yeah he didn't shoot it great, but I'm not really worried about that." Westbrook, who is shooting 36.2 percent in December, had 24 points, 17 rebounds and 13 assists with a season-high 10 turnovers in the earlier loss to Chicago.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Westbrook has made only five of his 25 shots inside the arc over the last two games.
2. Bulls SF Justin Holiday was 1-for-12 from the floor at San Antonio and is 12-for-42 over a four-game span.
3. Oklahoma City has won four straight games at home.