NBA: Zach LaVine leads Bulls over Pistons in 94-88 season-opening victory

The Chicago Bulls (1-0) took down the Detroit Pistons (0-1) on Wednesday, Oct. 20 at Little Caesars Arena in front of 20,088 people in Detroit. Despite a slow start from both offenses, it was an entertaining contest as neither team led by double digits. Zach LaVine looked primed for another All-Star level season, scoring a game-high 34 points and seven rebounds including a highlight fastbreak dunk and an acrobatic and-one. DeMar DeRozan and Lonzo Ball combined for 29 points in their Chicago debut. Jerami Grant and Saddiq Bey were the only consistent scorers for Detroit as Grant finished with a team-high 24 points in the 94-88 loss. Bey totaled 13 points and nine rebounds to start his sophomore season.

Even though LaVine stole the show for most of the night, there was also an intriguing interior matchup between Nikola Vucevic and Isaiah Stewart. Both big men were crashing the glass extremely hard as Stewart finished with 12 points and eight rebounds on 6-9 shooting from the field. Vucevic wasn't as efficient on the offensive end but he still managed to total 15 points and a game-high 15 rebounds in the narrow win. It wasn't a pretty victory for Billy Donovan's team as they committed 17 turnovers and shot just 30.4% from 3-point range but that's to be expected early in the season. Chicago will look to start the new year 2-0 as they host New Orleans on Friday before getting a rematch at home against Detroit on Saturday night.

"We played solid defense and later started to find a rhythm. As long as we come with energy and play on both ends of the court then the offense will find it's way. This ain't last year. We're looking forward now. It's a whole new team and whole new mindset. Excited that we grinded it out. A win is a win," LaVine said in the postgame press conference following the win on Wednesday evening. "I'm always confident. I put the work in. We have a bunch of dogs on the team now and guys that will step up for each other. The whole team is bought in and we're going to take it game by game. We're already looking forward to New Orleans and getting this thing going."

Highlights available on YouTube.

Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune.