The San Antonio Spurs continued their annual “Rodeo Road Trip” on Monday night in the Windy City but fell 120-109 to the Chicago Bulls at the United Center.

The loss brings the San Antonio Spurs’ record to 2-2 on the trip with four games to play. Overall, San Antonio fell two games behind the Portland Trail Blazers for the final play-in spot in the Western Conference.

Here are three points from the Spurs’ loss on Monday:

Too much DeMar

DeMar DeRozan lit up his old team by shooting 66 percent and scored 40 points to lead Chicago. The game continued a hot streak for DeRozan, who had his seventh consecutive game with at least 30 points.

Nikola Vucevic had 25 points and 16 rebounds for Chicago, who played without All-Star Zach LaVine, who missed his second straight game due to soreness in his left knee.

“He’s always taking inventory. His brain is like a computer,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said of DeRozan’s recent run.

Cold from 3

The San Antonio Spurs’ up and down season from beyond the arc continued on Monday as they shot 30% (6-for-20) from three compared to Chicago, who hit 41% from deep.

In today’s NBA, it is hard to win if you are not hitting three-pointers and the Spurs have been finding out the hard way recently.

Defensive woes

San Antonio struggled to defend DeRozan on Monday. That led to double teams, which allowed Vucevic to get open shots when DeMar could not get a good look.

This left Coach Pop unhappy, citing multiple errors from his guys on both ends of the floor, pointing out DeRozan’s success to score at will.

“DeMar had a great night, he was super,” Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich said. But we could have done a better job on him and we didn’t. No matter who we put on him, whatever scheme we were trying to use, we did not execute it as we would have liked.”

UP NEXT:

The San Antonio Spurs are now 22-36 on the season and will return to the court on Wednesday to face the Oklahoma City Thunder at 7 p.m. from the Paycom Center.

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