Eastern Conference counterparts on losing streaks try to push toward the conclusion the 2025-26 regular season on a high note as the Chicago Bulls visit the Washington Wizards on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
Chicago (29-49) hung tough with Phoenix in a Sunday matinee, but gave up a late-game run that led to a seventh consecutive loss, 120-110. Tre Jones led Chicago with 29 points and dished six assists while filling some of the playmaking void left with Josh Giddey out due to a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just a firm believer in I was paid to come here to help this team win and I think every single night I can do that for my team,\u201d a confident Jones said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.<\/p>\n
The guard has averaged 13.7 points this season but has increased that to 17.5 points over the 18 games he has played since the beginning of March.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s as competitive as anybody I\u2019ve ever been around,\u201d Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. \u201cI just really appreciate the way he tries to, in his way, keep the group competing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones has been a leader for a roster that underwent significant midseason changes by trading Nikola Vucevic, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu to playoff contenders Boston, Charlotte and Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Chicago heads into its final four games with three on the road. The next two are both against Washington (17-61), a team floundering at the bottom of the Eastern Conference amid a six-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
The Wizards matched the franchise\u2019s longest losing skid of all-time at 16 games from Feb. 22 through March 22 but avoided making a dubious bit of history with their 133-110 rout of Utah on March 25.<\/p>\n
Since then, however, it has been more struggles for Washington, which has faced roster inconsistency due to injury much of the campaign.<\/p>\n
Just as marquee trade acquisition Trae Young began to work into the rotation March 5-16, the former Atlanta Hawks star sustained a season-ending quadriceps injury.<\/p>\n
Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly, Justin Champagnie, Tre Johnson and Tristan Vukcevic also were sidelined in Washington\u2019s 121-115 loss at Brooklyn on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Wizards rookies Will Riley and Julian Reese have been bright spots during Washington\u2019s injury-riddled struggles, with Riley scoring 30 points in Sunday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n
It was Riley\u2019s second consecutive game reaching the 30-point mark after he delivered a 31-point, five-steal effort on Saturday vs. the Miami Heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s really done this for a while now,\u201d Washington coach Brian Keefe said of the Illinois product. \u201cYou see his confidence growing, his skill set, his ability to make tough shots and get to the free-throw line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riley\u2019s scoring average is up to 10.2 points per game, and he has attempted 26 foul shots over the last five games while making 22 of them.<\/p>\n
Reese finished Sunday\u2019s contest with 17 points and 16 rebounds for his third double-double in the last four games. Reese is averaging 10.8 points and 11.3 rebounds in his nine appearances (seven starts) with the Wizards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eastern Conference counterparts on losing streaks try to push toward the conclusion the 2025-26 regular season on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,920,919,329,3824,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-701840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bulls","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-bulls","12":"tag-chicagobulls","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}