PG: Bulls Lose to The Worst Team In the League

[Ice Man]

I was there in person tonight. Blame the loss on me. I'm on a 3 game losing streak attending bulls games in person

My wife is on 11.

[Ice Man]

Coincidentally, the Wiz lost to that bad Pelicans squad, and the unstoppable Miami Heat lost to The Mighty Timberwolves.

Neither team, of course, is particularly good. I mean the Heat are OK, will win about 50, but that is nowhere near a special team. Maybe the Wiz will win 50 on fumes, but I doubt it.

[rjforniss]

I’m not happy about this loss and can easily call it the worst and most embarrassing loss of the season. My one question is can we ever do anything except Demar or Zach iso plays on offense? All season, it seems this is all we do and it’s frustrating. I don’t know how many times my brother and I have watched the games yelling “pass the ball!” Then I watch Warriors games with my Warriors fan son and their passing is a thing of beauty. They pass and work the ball around to the open man constantly and it usually leads to an open 3 or and open lane. Why can’t we do this? Why is it always Demar or Zach iso while the rest of the team stands around? That may work in some regular season games as we have seen, but that will never work in the playoffs. /rant

[chifan1798]

Bulls should complain to the league about the fake Lonzo offensive foul. That was the game right there. Easily one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen in an NBA game. Not the worst but it’s definitely up there.

I’m sure their post game report, is going to say it’s an accurate call, because they’re trying to cover their own assess, but that was ridiculous. That was a 6 point swing, because they went down and hit a 3 on the other end. At worst, it should have been a no call, because Zo’s shot was long gone, and he had landed before any of that BS happened with either player falling. What really should have happened, is that it be an and1 for Zo. Terrible terrible momentum killing call.

[Ice Man]

I don't understand the Lonzo call either, but the league routinely reverses calls after a coach's challenge, and it routinely issues reports saying that referees' calls were wrong. So the argument that the NBA simply covers its tail by refusing to acknowledge mistakes fails. Whatever the answer to the mystery is, that is not it.

[weneeda2guard]

I think a bit too many of us are worried about what everyone thinks of us. I think that most the reporters understand we are much better than they predicted and a loss on the road to a bad rockets team won't change that. Bad losses happen. To everyone. The 96 bulls a team some believe is the greatest of all time has a loss in Toronto to the Raptors on that 72-10 record. Raptors were a horrible expansion team. It happens

With that said the things that stand out for me the most is our offense struggling against this zone. Billy is likely going small to counter the zone and get out on the run to score before the defense can set. With lavine and derozan on the floor guys like ball caruso Vucevic coby ayo etc are getting wide open shots that they need to knock down at a bit of a higher clip especially in crucial moments of the game.

That call on lonzo hurt us a lot. We were on a run and the refs essentially killed our momentum

Another issue is bench scoring. When another team is dominating us in bench scoring, we got outscored 59-26 from their 2nd unit, then it leaves fresher legs to a teams starters while on the other hand since we are so top heavy we are getting to the 4th with our starters exhausted. Billy looks weird with his rotations sometimes but I can also see he is trying to get as much rest as he can for lavine and derozan. Guys like Derrick Jones, coby, green and others need to give us a bit more on the offensive end although there are times where lavine and derozan are on the floor with them in mainly iso sets and the offense stalls. Regardless we need more from our 2nd it to extend leads and maintain leads. We need to find a set where lavine and derozan are resting we are still scoring and defending so both of them can be fresher to finish games

Last thing is, bulls are in new territory and I don't think these guys realize what it means to be the hunted. Beating us means something now. We need to come out more focused and ready to dominate from beginning to end.

[coldfish]

That game was really worrying. More so than Indiana. It really played into all of the narratives about guys like Vucevic and Lavine.

It drifts into the back of your mind that these guys just are who they are and they were able to cover it up for a month or so with effort but when they got tired, they went back to the mean.

Good teams lose to bad teams and Houston was ridiculously hot. I'm more concerned about the way that the team lost than the fact that they lost.

[Wingy]

Coincidentally, the Wiz lost to that bad Pelicans squad, and the unstoppable Miami Heat lost to The Mighty Timberwolves.

Neither team, of course, is particularly good. I mean the Heat are OK, will win about 50, but that is nowhere near a special team. Maybe the Wiz will win 50 on fumes, but I doubt it.

Yeah, it was more to undermine the Heat
TBH. Who are very good, and quite possibly better than us, but not the juggernaut deserving of the high homage paid by some here. Also, the Wolves aren’t so bad this year. Cream will rise. Bucks will push all 3 teams below them sooner than later.

[Ice Man]

Cream will rise. Bucks will push all 3 teams below them sooner than later.

Yep. Bucks and Nets are the class of the East. Sixers might get there if if they deal Simmons. The rest of us are battling to become the best of the 2nd tier.

[sco]

I'll try to be the optimistic guy this time. Despite playing poorly and Vuc coming off COVID, we were in this game til the end. And give HOU credit, they have 2 capable scoring C's which creates match-up problems for us(Sengun is a young stud) and they made a lot of contested 3's and the end where we went cold.

I knew Billy was going to go back to Green at the starting PF, but I'm ready to move on to trying Jones. IMO, Billy's issue is Bradley at back-up C, but I think the kid is decent as a backup C.

I'm not blaming the loss on Coby. He deserves a good 10 game stretch to find his game and make the rotation stick. Without a 3pt shooting bench guy, we're not gonna be a great team. If he finds his game, great! If not, we need to make a move at the deadline.

I though Ball played well. Happy to see him taking/making 3's. I know guys were call BS on that foul, but he totally flopped and made contact.

I do wonder if Caruso can play 30+ min a game and stay upright for the season. That said, it was good to see him making shots again. At times, he and Ball look reluctant to shoot, but it's the only way to counteract the scheming against DD and Zach.

[Ctownbulls]

Houston shot lights out and the Bulls played lackadaisical and sloppy. That's a recipe for a loss no matter who you play.

Give credit to Houston for shooting an insane percentage from 3 in the second half. They couldn't have shot worse than 12 for 16 in the 2H. You aren't going to beat any teams if that happens.

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[Ctownbulls]

Cheer up!. We lost to the worst in the conference in 1992 as well with the best record in the league with peak MJ on the squad.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199203210CHI.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/index.cgi?month=3&day=21&year=1992

I came in to basically say this.

Every team has duds. We’ve played great for the vast majority of our games so I’m sticking to that until we have a consistent streak of poor performances.

I also remember the baby bulls beating the Shaq/Kobe Lakers in LA including a monster put back from Chandler in OT. It was our championship.

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[NecessaryEvil]

Definitely making the Nick Friedels of the world look like they have a 200 IQ.

??

We’re 12-7 not 7-12

[FriedRise]

Still disappointed and pissed about this loss. You can’t follow that Indiana performance with that, man. Truly embarrassing also given that we’re fully healthy.

They need to make it up with Ws in the next back to back vs Orlando and Miami, or this is gonna be more of the same old Bulls.

[Jax Teller]

Every team has brutal losses. Maybe expectations in here are a bit too high, stop watching the Last Dance this isn’t the 90’s Bulls. Be thankful they don’t stink, there will be bumps in the road. Learn from it and move on

[ChettheJet]

It seemed like they 'just phoned it in'. AC said no sense of urgency, I'd say maybe individually they thought they'd take it easy at the start and let somebody else carry the load against a bad team and as the game went on nobody decided to step up and make it happen. If you want to blame Billy go ahead I point to Zach wanting to be seen as a leader and not seeing it was time for him to speak up. He had 25 points as usual but I don't mean he should have scored 50. I mean he should have yelled in a huddle that the game was slipping away and we as a team need to get out heads out of the sand and play defense and give HOU the chance to be the losers they are.

[fleet]

This game said a lot about their short term potential. By all rights after the previous game, this should have been a pride game, where they rebound strongly and make a statement.

[Wingy]

Still disappointed and pissed about this loss. You can’t follow that Indiana performance with that, man. Truly embarrassing also given that we’re fully healthy.

They need to make it up with Ws in the next back to back vs Orlando and Miami, or this is gonna be more of the same old Bulls.

Surprised by how many are just dismissing it as a bad night following an awful night. The team clearly needed a humbling.

They got it. Thanks, Houston.

[Jcool0]

This kind of loss definitely makes me question what the ceiling of this team is. You cant get beat down by a 1-15 team and consider yourself contenders.

[weneeda2guard]

This kind of loss definitely makes me question what the ceiling of this team is. You cant get beat down by a 1-15 team and consider yourself contenders.

Lol

Contenders have always lost to really bad teams

Most chalk it up to good teams playing down to their competition.

It's hard getting up to compete for a team that is terrible and matching their intensity when beating you means everything to them. They were hungry for a win. Nobody is viewing us as fake contenders from that loss. We have too many great wins vs much better teams to get that kind of opinion