{"id":488735,"date":"2026-01-03T05:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/488735\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T05:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:26:09","slug":"buzelis-scores-21-points-huerter-adds-20-as-bulls-beat-magic-121-114-for-2nd-straight-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/488735\/","title":{"rendered":"Buzelis scores 21 points, Huerter adds 20 as Bulls beat Magic 121-114 for 2nd straight win"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — – Matas Buzelis<\/a> scored 17 of his 21 points in the second half, Kevin Huerter<\/a> added 20 points, and the Chicago Bulls<\/a> rallied to beat the Orlando Magic<\/a> 121-114 on Friday night for their second straight win.<\/p>\n

Buzelis hit a pair of free throws with 22.8 seconds left to make 119-114, then pulled in his ninth rebound to send in Isaac Okoro<\/a> for a game-sealing dunk with 4 seconds remaining. Buzelis also finished with a season-high seven assists.<\/p>\n

Nikola Vucevic<\/a> added 17 points and 10 rebounds and Ayo Dosumnu had 17 points as Chicago outscored Orlando 30-19 in the fourth quarter to climb back to .500. (17-17).<\/p>\n

Paolo Banchero<\/a> scored 31 points and Anthony Black<\/a> added 18 for the Magic in a game with 19 lead changes.<\/p>\n

Jalen Suggs<\/a> had 11 points for Orlando in his second game back after missing seven with a hip injury, but left this one after landing hard and straining his right knee late in the third quarter. Desmond Bane<\/a> added 14 and Wendell Carter Jr<\/a>. had 13 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Six Chicago players reached double figures as the Bulls played a second game without its top two scorers in Josh Giddey<\/a> and Coby White<\/a>, who were injured in a loss to Minnesota<\/a> on Monday night.<\/p>\n

The Magic have been without leading scorer Franz Wagner<\/a> (22.7 point per game) since he suffered a high ankle sprain on Dec. 7.<\/p>\n

Orlando led 95-91 heading into the fourth quarter, but Bulls took a 105-102 lead on Buzelis’ 3-pointer 4:44 into the quarter.<\/p>\n

The Bulls pulled into 59-all tie at halftime on Huerter’s cutting layup after falling behind by 10 early and trailing by as much as 13 in the first quarter after the Magic went on a 14-0 run.<\/p>\n

Banchero hit his first four shots and five of six to score 11 of his 13 first-half points in just over the opening 7:16.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Magic: Host Indiana on Sunday<\/p>\n

Bulls: Host Charlotte on Saturday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/nba<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — – Matas Buzelis scored 17 of his 21 points in the second half, Kevin Huerter added…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":488736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[220512,3127,5723,1260,3121,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-488735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-220512","9":"tag-chicago-bulls","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-orlando-magic","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115829511812624419","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}