Down the stretch, the Sacramento Kings kept turning the ball over. And Coby White kept getting to the basket.
COBY WHITE SETS A CAREER HIGH WITH 37 POINTS AND GIVES THE BULLS THE LEAD WITH UNDER A MINUTE TO GO! pic.twitter.com/hlOo29f7vb
— Bulls Talk (@NBCSBulls) March 5, 2024
In a wild sequence with less than a minute left, White missed a shot, tracked down a wild pass near the half court line after Chicago got an offensive rebound, then scored through contact for the go-ahead basket.
The and-one gave White a career-high 37 points and his seventh point in the last three minutes of the game. The Bulls went on to win 113-109.
COBY TIES THE GAME.@NBCSChicago | @CobyWhite pic.twitter.com/2ugXG0PykC
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) March 5, 2024
Chicago trailed by 22 points late in the third quarter, before White slashed the deficit by outscoring the Kings by himself, 9-2, in the final 3:15 of the quarter.
White had 10 points, two rebounds and three assists in the fourth, while teammate DeMar DeRozan scored 19 of his 33 points in the final quarter.
White's emergence has been the turning point for Chicago's season. On Nov. 30, they were 5-14 when White played nearly 45 minutes and scored 23 points in a win over the Bulls. After that awful start, they've gone 24-18 and earned a five-game cushion on their play-in berth.
He's also remarkably cheap for how good he's been. White is signed through the next two seasons for just under $25M, a huge bargain for a 24-year-old point guard averaging almost 20 points per game.
The Bulls won't win anything this year, but they've got a franchise cornerstone in White. He might win something, however: The Most Improved Player award.
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