Despite the Bulls walking off the United Center with a thrilling 121-120 victory, Nikola Vucevic — who scored a game-high 28 points and grabbed 12 rebounds Saturday night — apparently wasn't happy about the way they won on Saturday night.

"We were very soft, no resistance," Vucevic told CHSN about the team's first-half performance. Then Jalen Smith disrupted him from behind during the interview, playfully telling him to "be happy" about the result. Vucevic looked grudgingly celebratory. He wasn't in the mood.

The Bulls (9-7) escaped with a one-point win over the Wizards (1-15), erasing a 16-point deficit to avoid what would have been an embarrassing loss at the United Center. It was a game Chicago desperately needed after a devastating 36-point blowout by the Miami Heat on Friday night. Facing a confidence-building opportunity against Washington, which was sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference on a 13-game losing streak and ranking 28th in offense, the Bulls instead sleepwalked through the first half.

The Wizards played perhaps their best offensive half of the season, building leads as large as 16 points before Chicago rallied to make it respectable entering halftime, trailing 74-66.

"I'm happy Vucevic said that," Billy Donovan said of the veteran center’s honest comment postgame. "He spoke up in the locker room, too. I think we certainly all felt that way at the half."

The first-half problems were glaring. Chicago lacked physicality against a short-handed Washington team missing key contributors. Midway through the first quarter, the Wizards exploded with a seven-point run to seize momentum. In the second quarter, Washington's offense caught fire as Corey Kispert knocked down back-to-back threes, building a 10-point lead that forced a Bulls timeout. A series of turnovers and missed shots allowed the Wizards to extend their advantage, prompting another timeout by Donvan.

The Bulls couldn't sustain defensive stops or offensive execution. Every time they generated momentum, Washington responded immediately, and the Bulls faded their prowess later on. CJ McCollum and others involved, firing away from the top of the key. The Wizards looked unbothered, calmly answering every Chicago push.

“To Vucevic’s point, the sustainability, that’s not there. It’s really hard,” Donovan said. “If you have to win, you have to do on a consistent basis.”

The turning point came in the second half. Vucevic entered hot with four straight points, and Coby White ignited the offense with a deformed and-one three to cut the deficit to one within a minute. Chicago tightened its defense, finally making stops and forcing Washington into difficult shots. Josh Giddey, ice-cold on the previous half, knocked down a pressure-packed corner three. Tre Jones and Giddey then piled up key buckets, and Ayo Dosunmu's three cut it to one before the fourth.

In the final frame, Giddey orchestrated the comeback, finding Huerter and White for open threes while attacking the basket himself. Vucevic spun inside for a hook that gave Chicago a 114-110 lead — their first since the second quarter. He followed with a three to beat the shot clock, extending the advantage. After Washington's Kyshawn George and McCollum hit back-to-back threes to retake the lead, Jones drew a crucial foul with 37 seconds left and hit two free throws to put the Bulls up again. George missed an 18-foot jumper, and Chicago's defensive pressure ended Wizards’ last possession to a turnover.

“We got a lot more physical in the second half. We covered for each other a lot more in the second half,” Donovan said.

But the stats told a troubling story. Despite controlling turnovers with just 10, the Bulls allowed Washington to shoot 44.4% from three-point range, hitting 16 triples compared to Chicago's 27.3% (12-of-44). The Bulls also couldn’t capitalize on their transition-scoring pedigree as they were outnumbered by the opponents 16-12.

Simultaneously, interior defense remained a concern: every time the Bulls built momentum and tried to seize the lead, the Wizards responded calmly or even doubled their fire, preventing Chicago from gaining separation.

This inconsistency is becoming a pattern. Against Portland, the Bulls allowed 39 fourth-quarter points and nearly lost before Vucevic's buzzer-beating three saved them. Against Washington on Saturday, they trailed by 16 to one of the league's worst teams before escaping by one point. Five games in seven nights, Donovan acknowledged, was a detrimental factor of slowing down the strength, but Chicago, battling the New Orlean Pelicans away on Monday, needs to soak the lesson in.

"Obviously we're happy we won, but we can't keep doing this. It's not sustainable. We have to be better," Vucevic said.

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