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Chicago Bulls star guard Zach LaVine didn't blame Bulls fans for booing their team during Friday's game against the Charlotte Hornets. The Bulls, who made a strong start to the season and entered the All-Star break tied at No.
1 place of the Eastern Conference standings, suffered a blowout 133-117 loss to the Hornets at United Center on Friday night. As the Bulls were heading into the locker room down by 28, their fans booed them. "They should," LaVine said after the game, per ESPN.
"It's embarrassing. We're a really good basketball team, and we're not playing like it. They know that. We know that. It's understandable. We understand that they have our back, but we got to play better." The Bulls are 7-15 since the All-Star break and have dropped four straight.
LaVine, who scored a team-high 23 points, was asked to describe the mood in the Bulls locker room. "Everybody is upset, man. We're getting our ass kicked," LaVine answered.
LaVine: We didn't start on the right way
The Hornets were up by nine after the first quarter and their lead increased to 28 before halftime.
"They just jumped on us," LaVine said. "We singing the same story, and I always try to be very uplifting and try to see the bright side, but I'm tired of talking. We say a lot of words and we say the right thing, but we got to figure it out.
We're not doing that, plain and simple." DeMar DeRozan, who is playing his first year with the Bulls, said he knew the Bulls would have to eventually hit a rough stretch but added it couldn't come at a worse time. "It's just one of those tests we wish we would've had earlier in the season," DeRozan said after the game.
"We had so much success so quick, so fast that I knew at some point we were going to have to deal with this type of adversity. You never want it at the end of the road. "It's kind of like, going through high school, you getting all A's as a freshman, sophomore.
Then as a junior and senior year, you get AP classes and that s--- is extremely hard. But now you've just got to buckle down and kind of put the extra work in. Studying. You've got to take it to that next level if you really want to -- if you want to go to Yale."