The Bulls found two different ways to lose on Friday & Saturday night. On Friday night, the Bulls battled back after being 17 points to the Washington Wizards. A last second 3-pointer from DeMar Derozan went in & out and the Bulls lost 102-100. Saturday night, the Bulls got run off the court in their home opener against a Cavaliers team that looked every bit the contender.
While both games played out differently there were some alarming similarities in both games. Both second quarters saw the Bulls struggle offensively and be unable to be disciplined in locating open shooters on the defensive end. In Friday night’s game, the Bulls saw a 4-point lead become a 9-point deficit. In Saturday night’s game, the Bulls’ inability to locate shooters and defend in the paint saw a 9-point deficit balloon to 18 midway through the 2nd quarter. In both games the Bulls were beaten in the paint and on fast break points. Friday night the Bulls were minus-10 on points in the paint and minus-7 on fast break points. Saturday night was even worse as the Bulls were minus-16 in fast break points and points in the paint.
The loss to the Wizards was concerning because the Bulls’ offense was stagnant even with DeMar DeRozan cooking late. The offense seemed to be in the mindset of standing around and letting DeMar try to save them. And while DeMar had 32 points, 6 assists & 6 rebounds on Friday, some of those degree of difficulty shots weren’t falling and the rest of team didn’t help out. Saturday night saw a Bulls team hit only 7 of 29 of its 3-pointers and were completely blown off the floor by Donovan Mitchell and the Cavaliers.
Zach LaVine played his first game of the season on Saturday and had a team high 23 points on 9 of 17 shooting. Nikola Vucevic added 16 points on 7 of 12 shooting. The rest of the team shot 18 for 55. DeMar DeRozan scored just 13 points before being ejected for arguing about what he felt were ticky-tack foul calls. The Bulls defensively were awful as they gave up 70 1st half point to the Cavs. The Bulls were also a minus-13 on the boards. It was an embarrassing effort and the end result was a 32-point blowout loss against a playoff-level team. Now where have Bulls fans heard that story before?
Final Thoughts:
- The Bulls’ lack of 3-point shooting has been a problem through the 1st three games this season. Their 29.3% 3-PT FG average is second worst in the NBA only to the Lakers.
- The Bulls are only averaging 20.3 assists per game. That ranks 5th worst in the NBA. Their 42.2% FG average is 4th worst in the league. Billy Donovan talks about the team needing to have more movement and less isolation ball. It seems the team is running much more of the latter than the former.
- Defensively, the Bulls are allowing their opponents to shoot 51.4% from the field and 46.9% from 3-point range. Both of those stats have the Bulls ranked dead last in those categories.
- Patrick Williams is drawing more ire from fans and analysts for his subpar play. Through 3 games he’s only averaging 5.7 points on 33.3% shooting and 2.0 rebounds. His PER is 4.08 which ranks him 55th among power forwards and 252nd overall. There have been opportunities for PWill to be aggressive and he has disappeared in those moments. For the Bulls to be successful Patrick Williams has to find it.
- Up Next: The Bulls play three of their next four games at home. They’ll get a visit from the defending Eastern Conference champion Celtics on Monday. The Pacers are at the UC on Wednesday followed by a trip to San Antonio on Friday before ending the week against the 76ers at home on Saturday.
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