In Monday night’s battle of two underachieving teams, the Bulls overachieved in their underachieving.
It’s tough to pick a low point from the Trail Blazers’ 117-94 dismantling of the Bulls, which dropped them to 6-12 overall and 3-7 at home. This after the Bulls, who won a franchise-low nine home games last season, made improving their home record a major offseason talking point.
It probably involved Carmelo Anthony, though.
What’s worse? Anthony dunking, Wendell Carter Jr. comitting a turnover by stepping over the end line trying to inbound the ball and Anthony burying a three-pointer on the bonus possession, giving him five points in 15 seconds? Or some of the sparse crowd of 18,776 chanting “We want Melo!” after Anthony retreated to the bench to FaceTime with his son (thanks to his wife being in attendance) after scoring 25 points?
As if those moments aren’t low enough, there’s plenty more.
The Bulls made outrebounding teams a priority and finished minus-18 on the glass, including allowing 13 offensive rebounds that led to 16 second-chance points for the Trail Blazers.
After scoring nine first-half points, Lauri Markkanen attempted just two second-half shots and missed both, knocking down one free throw to finish with 10 points.
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The Bulls aggressively blitzed pick-and-rolls in the first half, often leading to them scrambling to find open shooters or falling out of position for defensive rebounds, and then started switching pick-and-rolls in the second half. That led to plenty of isolations for Anthony as the Trail Blazers methodically picked the Bulls’ defense apart, finding mismatches consistently.
The Trail Blazers shot 51.7 percent. The Bulls shot 41.9 percent, including a grisly 23.1 percent on three-pointers.
“I like my group,” coach Jim Boylen said. “They’re disappointed they didn’t play better. We’re going to come in to work [Tuesday] and grow.”
The Bulls have yet to win two straight games this season. They’ve now suffered four double-digit losses at home.
Where’s the growth?
“We left some points that I think we could’ve had and I think it hurt our spirit a little bit,” Boylen said. “We have to fight through those moments and keep playing.”
Zach LaVine, who followed his historic night of making 13 three-pointers and scoring 49 points in Charlotte with just 13 shots, disputed this.
“I don’t speak for him. But I’m never discouraged when I miss,” LaVine said. “I know how much work I put into shooting the ball. I don’t care if I miss five, six, seven in a row. I’m going to shoot. I can’t speak for the team. I just know me personally, I don’t get discouraged.”
LaVine got to the line seven times and tallied five assists, but his six turnovers featured multiple charges. Asked if he and Markkanen need to maybe take matters into their own hands more offensively on a night Kris Dunn got as many three-point attempts as both, LaVine didn’t bite.
“I tried to play the right way. They were doubling me off all pick-and-rolls. I kept finding the open man,” he said. “I missed a dunk and two free throws. I try to bring something into the game to get us going. [Monday night] just wasn’t it. We played against a good halfcourt defensive team. We need to get in transition more. But you gotta get stops first. We didn’t get that.”
The Bulls lead the league in forced turnovers and their opponents have committed 15 or more in all 18 games. That’s the franchise’s longest such streak since a 34-game streak in 1973.
Boylen said last week he doesn’t coach for steals. But the high-risk, high-reward scheme has led to scramble mode often, including for defensive rebounding positioning.
“Because we’re always in rotations, that’s our defensive scheme. I think we just gotta play it. We’re the players. We gotta do what our scheme is in practice,” LaVine said. “We’re doing it to the best of our abilities. We just gotta get it done.
“They were making a lot of shots. They were slipping out, get a man in the pocket and playing 2-on-1 on the backside or hitting their midrange. That’s the shot we’re living to give up. They damn sure knocked them down. It’s a catch-22 sometimes. We have been forcing a lot of turnovers. We just gotta convert when we get the ball so we don’t have to play against their halfcourt defense.”
Boylen alluded to the focus trying to stop the Trail Blazers’ talented backcourt of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum when asked about the team’s defensive performance.
“We’re spending so much energy trying to keep those two guys in front of us that I think we were sometimes standing and watching when they were iso-ing. As they were moving in position to shoot the ball, they were moving in position to rebound too,” he said. “I think where we struggled a little bit too is we had an offensive lineup on the floor that didn’t guard real well. And then we had a defensive lineup on the floor that didn’t shoot real well. We were stuck in the middle a little bit, which happens.”
With LaVine enduring first-half foul trouble, Boylen even dusted off Denzel Valentine, who scored 11 points in 16 minutes. Boylen used an 11-man rotation in the first half, then expanded it to 12 and played Chandler Hutchison in his return from sore shins during mop-up minutes.
“It’s been tough,” Valentine said about his banishment from the rotation. “At the end of the day, we’re professional basketball players. It’s just the business. You just got to be ready when your number is called. That’s my mindset for the rest of the year.”
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