It was Giddey\u2019s least impactful performance of the season, limited to just nine points on 2-9 shooting in 33 minutes as he was benched down the stretch. <\/p>\n
Nine points is the Aussie floor general\u2019s equal-lowest output of the season, matched only by his return-from-injury game against Portland in November. <\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764969428_273_poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
And while the 23-year-old did notch seven rebounds and six assists on Saturday, he also committed five turnovers and was a -17 in his time on the court as his drives to the basket weren\u2019t as fruitful as they otherwise have been this season. <\/p>\n
Fellow Melburnian Johnny Furphy \u2014 in his second game back from injury after 14 games out \u2014 played an early part in quelling his countryman\u2019s influence. <\/p>\n
The six-foot-eight guard-forward played solid point-of-attack defence on Giddey when he tried to make moves inside the key. <\/p>\n
\u201cFellow Australian Johnny Furphy is all over him,\u201d Bulls play-by-play caller Adam Amin noted. <\/p>\n
Furphy, in his second NBA season, only recently returned to Rick Carlisle\u2019s Indiana lineup after his start to the campaign was hindered by an ankle injury. <\/p>\n
The 20-year-old only scored two points in a shallow stat line, but he was an obstacle for the Bulls on defence in 16 minutes of action. <\/p>\n
Physical Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard was also giving Giddey troubles on defence, staying in front of the Aussie as he looked to slash to the basket.<\/p>\n
Giddey persisted in his aim of getting to the rim as much as possible \u2014 and he did draw numerous fouls in doing so \u2014 but the Bulls were mostly uninspiring on offence and again surrendered a 120-plus-point score to their opposition amid an alarming trend. <\/p>\n
Giddey didn\u2019t play the final four minutes after coach Billy Donovan pulled the Aussie with the Bulls down 15 points. The Australian committed a foul and missed two shots before Donovan pulled the plug with 4:20 remaining. <\/p>\n
Chicago\u2019s injury list is long, with all of Ayo Dosunmu, Tre Jones, Isaac Okoro, Jalen Smith and Kevin Huerter unavailable on Saturday. <\/p>\n
Lebron finds Hachimura for buzzer-beater | 02:32<\/p>\n
In Atlanta, Daniels\u2019 Hawks fell 134-133 against the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic, who dropped 40 points, nine rebounds and eight assists. <\/p>\n
Daniels played an equal-team-high 34 minutes and finished with 15 points on 7-14 shooting, with eight assists and three rebounds. <\/p>\n
Denver rallied from 23 points behind to upstage the Hawks and move to 16-6. <\/p>\n
It came as star Atlanta forward Jalen Johnson had the second-quickest triple-double in history, notching the feat before half-time before finishing with 21 points, 18 rebounds and a whopping 16 assists. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of Australians went head-to-head in Chicago on Saturday, with an emerging forward locking down Josh Giddey.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[185039,145902,2620,2095,5643,1813,4131,7218,64,43336,63,185041,5127,2066,1662,12840,185038,800,2105,9286,7221,5088,126280,91117,3231,155547,163806,162571,7896,7232,12284,590,3906,2041,2067,185035,7640,185037,14056,185040,185036,185042,85,42307,17602,179347,42008,2614],"class_list":["post-330816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-absolute-brink","tag-adam-amin","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-america","tag-andrew-nembhard","tag-ankle-injury","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-au","tag-aussie","tag-australia","tag-buzzer-beater-winner","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-dyson-daniels","tag-equal-lowest-output","tag-espn-inc","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-illinois","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-injury-list","tag-isaac-okoro","tag-j-michael-reaves","tag-jack-jovanovski","tag-jalen-smith","tag-johnny-furphy","tag-kevin-huerter","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-maine","tag-nba","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-point-of-attack-defence","tag-portland","tag-return-from-injury-game","tag-rick-carlisle","tag-scoring-output","tag-shallow-stat-line","tag-sixth-straight-game","tag-sports","tag-state-of-georgia","tag-toronto-raptors","tag-tre-jones","tag-united-center","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}