PG: Screwed the pooch

[Bulls03]

This is ROBIN Lopez, not Brook, why are you acting like Lopez was gonna being scoring down the stretch or even get shots? Maybe offensive rebounds but that's it. If Robin played he'd have to guard Blake.

He was 5-6 from the field and he would've had opportunities. And would've helped on the offensive glass, defensive glass, and setting screens. There is no argument for Bobby over Lopez. Speights scored 16 on Bobby.

Lopez is an opportunity scorer. He's not a player who exposes individual mismatches in scoring situations. How would Lopez help on the defensive glass if he's guarding Speights on the three-point line?

Speights had 4 offensive rebounds so that's how he would've helped on the glass. Lopez would've exposed Speights defense regardless. You can throw the ball the Lopez and he can score off a move. He did it against Jordan at least 3 times.

[XxMisterFreakXx]

I always try to just keep my spirits high about Niko but the bulls should really consider shopping him and see if you can a get something in return for him and Portis cause the bench PF position is a problem. I understand Willie Cauley-Stein is available maybe you can work out a trade to get him and another young player/prospect from the kings.

[TimRobbins]

That sucked. Still 2-1 on this trip is pretty good so far.

[kingkirk]

Bulls start the Circus Trip 2-0 and only just lose to a team that's 1st in Def Rtg, 1st in point differential and 2nd in Off Rtg, but people are raging about Lopez not playing at the end, which would have been a terrible matchup.

You haven't changed, Bulls board.

/out

[Bulls03]

This is ROBIN Lopez, not Brook, why are you acting like Lopez was gonna being scoring down the stretch or even get shots? Maybe offensive rebounds but that's it. If Robin played he'd have to guard Blake.

He was 5-6 from the field and he would've had opportunities. And would've helped on the offensive glass, defensive glass, and setting screens. There is no argument for Bobby over Lopez. Speights scored 16 on Bobby.

Lopez can't guard Speights on pick n rolls with Paul, it's as simple as that. Your options for that matchup are Taj, Niko or Bobby, that's it.

Speights had 16! We had a player out there who gave us nothing on either end. We're saying "Lopez couldnt defend the pick n roll" when the guy who was out there let Speights score 16 lol.

[Bulls03]

Bulls start the Circus Trip 2-0 and only just lose to a team that's 1st in Def Rtg, 1st in point differential and 2nd in Off Rtg, but people are raging about Lopez not playing at the end, which would have been a terrible matchup.

You haven't changed, Bulls board.

/out

We were up 19 and they were on the 2nd night of a back to back. This should've been a clear win but the bench and Fred provided nothing.

[dumbell78]

Lopez cant handle the mobile bigs

Portis just cant handle anything

Niko was a ghost.

I got nothing, maybe go extra small or something?

[Verfy]

Glass half full... we barely lost to the hottest team in the NBA. *shrug*

They actually have the best record.

Got to say, the Clips look different this year. Redick has made a big leap in overall confidence; looking like he's put it all together. That alley-oop pass was really nice. Griffin looks like he's approaching this season more seriously. They've still got a lot of veteran talent. This may be their year.

I hope not. Really like our odds of recruiting CP3/Griffin if GSW eliminates them in May.

They Clippers were on a back to back and came out flat. Bulls let them back into the game.

[chifan1798]

mo speights outscored our entire bench and people are defending the decision to leave bobby portis in because lopez would have been a bad defensive matchup

Name one shot Speights got off Portis that he wouldn't have gotten on Lopez? Come on now.

Well, wouldn't that be the point? Bobby wasn't doing that good of a job keeping Speights in check.....so if he was going to get wide open 3 pointers all night, then at least we could have had Lopez leave him open all the time, but in addition, we'd get some solid defense at the rim and rebounding which Bobby wasn't giving us at all. In addition.....maybe Lopez could have tried to take advantage on the other end as well. Also, let's not act like this team doesn't switch all the time anyway.....so I don't know if Lopez would have been that much more putrid on defense than Bobby.

[Hangtime84]

Would've been cool to win this. But truthfully we're not even close to their level yet. If not because of Wade's unusual hot shooting from 3, the game wouldn't be this close.

But I like our effort, I think teams are taking notice. Nobody is going to sleep on us anymore. Expect teams to start bringing extra edge playing against us.

The Lakers bring it every night it's been fun watching them too

[RedBulls23]

Lopez cant handle the mobile bigs

Portis just cant handle anything

Niko was a ghost.

I got nothing, maybe go extra small or something?

I think when MCW comes back, extra small might work.

You could go Rondo/Wade/MCW/Butler/Taj

[nomorezorro]

Bulls start the Circus Trip 2-0 and only just lose to a team that's 1st in Def Rtg, 1st in point differential and 2nd in Off Rtg, but people are raging about Lopez not playing at the end, which would have been a terrible matchup.

You haven't changed, Bulls board.

/out

the "only just lose" part happened as the bulls worst rotation player got minutes over arguably the team's most valuable big man. people are raging because hoiberg let matchups bully him into benching a good player and playing a terrible player.

"lopez is a worse matchup" is an understandable argument to make, but like...we saw what happened when portis was in. it was really really bad. it's not an understandable argument to say "this matchup is so terrible that it is not even worth exploring the possibility that our good player would be more productive than our terrible guy"

[Hangtime84]

One of the officials lost his cool tonight

[Bulls03]

mo speights outscored our entire bench and people are defending the decision to leave bobby portis in because lopez would have been a bad defensive matchup

Name one shot Speights got off Portis that he wouldn't have gotten on Lopez? Come on now.

Well, wouldn't that be the point? Bobby wasn't doing that good of a job keeping Speights in check.....so if he was going to get wide open 3 pointers all night, then at least we could have had Lopez leave him open all the time, but in addition, we'd get some solid defense at the rim and rebounding which Bobby wasn't giving us at all. In addition.....maybe Lopez could have tried to take advantage on the other end as well. Also, let's not act like this team doesn't switch all the time anyway.....so I don't know if Lopez would have been that much more putrid on defense than Bobby.

The exact point im trying to make but it's just not understood for some reason. It's really simple

[Betta Bulleavit]

My take aways rom the game are this:

1. People can complain all they want about Fred leaving Portis in for as long as he did. I get it. However, in order for him to really get a feel for what certain guys are capable of, he's gotta given them some run in crucial situations. And given the match ups, it made sense. It just didn't produce the desired results and I think that speaks more towards Portis than it does Hoiberg.

2. This game exemplifies everything that's wrong with NBA officiating. To me, it was pretty clear that the Clippers were getting the benefit down the stretch. However, the Bulls were getting the benefit a lot before that. The problem for us is that we weren't getting the benefit when we needed it the most. I think that if you ask most NBA coaches, they aren't looking to really get phantom calls, they'd much prefer that the game just be called with consistency and competence. NBA officiating is the worst when it comes to that.

3. The only thing that hurts about this loss is that we were in great position to get the W. But we didn't. We didn't execute the way that we needed to and it cost us. Now we have to look for a quick bounce back because we still have a chance at a great road trip. It's up to these guys to make that happen.

[ImSlower]

I don't have an answer against playing Bobby Portis. I agree that we didn't really have an option, with Felicio's dolphin flipper hands, and Lopez not being a perimeter guy. Portis is not the single reason we lost the game, of course. But I'd say it's hard to argue that he wasn't the single most detrimental contributor tonight. Even before the last few minutes, he made bad plays almost every minute he was in. Niko made dumb plays as usual, Rondo screwed up here and there (but made enough strong plays that I thought he was a net positive for the game, especially with Canaan missing some 3s he probably wants back. Butler seemed hung over, and got locked down by Mbah a Moute.

That first quarter was fun, sure, as Wade hit three identical pull-up 3s. I don't think it's a terrible thing to say that the Bulls simply aren't in the same tier of team as the Clippers. We played a very competitive game against the team with easily the highest point differential in the league.

I think this season will be full of tough, close losses and some flashy wins. It's still going much better than many of us thought. 2017 could be very exciting if we make some upgrades.

[pduh01]

Another thing to adjust that Fred should have done is tell his players to double team Mo once he hit at least two shots in a row, and see how he and they respond with the double team If it works you continue to double him up

Double-teaming Mo Speights. With Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Jamal Crawford on the floor.

What could possibly go wrong?

I probably would have mention that I would double team on Mo when CP3 was on the bench at that time, and it may not work but it is something different, or at least attempting to make an adjustment instead of sticking with one thing for a long period of time that isn't working. I believe Blake was on the bench too in the third quarter when Mo get on the floor but I could be wrong. Something doesn't work then you make adjustment immediately and find the solution don't stick with one thing long period of time when you know it isn't working.

One thing we all can agree this shows how weak of our front court depth in terms of a defensive, athletic, and mobile big we lack

[dumbell78]

One of the officials lost his cool tonight

Usually the case with Clipper games, their nonstop chirping is tough to endure for 2-3 hours straight.

[nomorezorro]

like i genuinely feel insane reading people say "well it didn't work out but i understand the decision"

bobby portis, a guy who stinks out loud right now, played for more than a quarter of consecutive game time as the bulls were in the process of blowing a winnable game. he is bad, and he played a long time against a good team, and the guy he defended lit us up to lead them to victory.

[kulaz3000]

I'll say overall showed more positives to me than negatives, they showed plenty of fight and the game could have gone either way. What makes this lose frustrating is it's not because we were dominated by a better team, but because we made mistakes that could have been corrected.

I kept bringing up why Lopez wasn't in the game, and though the detractors are correct he would have had difficult defending on the outside but it would have given us another option to score in the post to settle us down offensively instead of continuing to jack up jumper after jumper. Would he have struggled that much worse than Portis did? Not only did him being theoretically better at guarding who he was supposed to, but he is also a horrendous rebounder, and doesn't box out. This should have been enough reason for Fred to say, screw it, I'm going to get our guards to force it in the post to Robin and hopefully he gets us a some points and force Rivers to bring in Jordan early to alleviate one of our bigs having to defend on the outside.

Fred was too reactionary throughout the game, waiting for Rivers to make certain moves with his line up for than Fred to react to that instead of forcing or at least attempting to force River's hand. This was the most frustrating aspect of the game. His coaching was defensive as opposed to offensive and forcing Rivers to make changes to adjust to his decisions as opposed to the other way around. He played right into Rivers hands in the fourth and Fred had every opportunity to mix it up and yet, he fell into the trap of having to play Portis a lot more than he should have and it failed.

As for Jimmy for the most part he has been great, no one is denying that but as the best player on this team and now one of the better players in the league he is not prone to criticism if anything that opens him up for more criticism. He allowed players like Luc and baby Rivers to play him straight up and he forced up jumper after jumper and it wasn't pretty. He doesn't always need to score a high percentage or many points, but he still needs to demand the ball more often and when his shots aren't falling, to decide to make plays for others.

Overall though, we showed a lot of resilience tonight and as fans we should be somewhat satisfied that we could have very well won this game if we had some lucky bounces, but sooner or later, if we are going to be real contenders we need to win one of these tight games down the stretch against a really good team. We have some tough games ahead, but our real test is on the 2nd December.