Are we over-passing?

[sco]

Our turn-overs this year have been horrible. Many of our turn-overs, I attribute to:

1) Passes into a packed paint area. Not sure if this is a Thibs thing or bad judgement, but so many of our guys are trying to make these thread-the-needle passes to bigs or slashers when they are already in the paint. Seems like someone could just say, "Don't do that."

2) Guys on perimeter who have open shot, passing it up, seemingly to look unselfish. I see two different culprits here. Guys like Noah, Snell and Mirotic being gun-shy...this is more forgivable, but these guys all need to take the shots when they are open. Then you have guys like Rose and Jimmy who should be a little more selfish since they are designated scorers, but I feel like they are trying too hard to get rest of team involved...who, per my prior point, would rather that designated scorers take open shots.

3) Lazy passes...that seems more solvable.

You guys see things differently?

[NZB2323]

Sometimes, and sometimes we don't pass enough. The more these guys play together the more their chemistry should improve.

[Mech Engineer]

I saw a lot of bad or no passing yesterday. Joakim tries to thread the needle too much .

I don't know why he turns his back to the basket at the top of the key and keeps pounding the ball. There were many times if he stands upright or dribbles forward...there are guys like Snell, MDJ open at the corners for a few seconds.

Pau also needs to use his height to pass over the defenders.

Jimmy seems to be the best or the smartest passer on the team. I can't say enough about his smartness.

Mirotic makes good passes inside but his decision making can be iffy.

Overall, I hope they take shots based on secondary issues like if there is a rebounder set up.

One thing I want to see is the ball go from one side to the other with one less extra pass. That should generate a lot of corner 3s which makes guys like Kirk, Jimmy look good.

[khufure]

IMO we're turning the ball over too much because of bad spacing and poor mechanics. There are exceptions but I generally like the passing decisions.

[kodo]

I don't see passing as optional for a contending team.

If we're committing too many TOs, the players & coaching need to solve that but they shouldn't resort to passing less and more iso ball. That will never win consistently.

GS was one of the worst offenders in the league in over passing last season, 7th or 8th worst in the league in turnovers. But their coaches never told these guys to stop passing, they simply had to get better at. They're now one of the best offenses in the league.

I like that Chicago passes the ball and it doesn't get stuck in a black hole (most of the time), I wouldn't want to them to stop.

Especially now that most of the league has adopted Thib's style of overloading the strong side of the ball, iso is going to be less & less effective. Example: Carmelo Anthony vs Knicks success.

In the long term it will be better to keep passing, make mistakes, and learn from them.

[DannyNoonan1221]

Just commenting on the first point-

Way too many hard bounce passes to cutters in the lane coming from a guy who is already in/near the lane.

At some point we need to stop throwing a bounce pass 4 feet away to a cutting noah- he is not agile enough to control the ball at full speed and have a legit chance at putting the right touch on the shot.

[Tetlak]

Our turn-overs this year have been horrible. Many of our turn-overs, I attribute to:

1) Passes into a packed paint area. Not sure if this is a Thibs thing or bad judgement, but so many of our guys are trying to make these thread-the-needle passes to bigs or slashers when they are already in the paint. Seems like someone could just say, "Don't do that."

2) Guys on perimeter who have open shot, passing it up, seemingly to look unselfish. I see two different culprits here. Guys like Noah, Snell and Mirotic being gun-shy...this is more forgivable, but these guys all need to take the shots when they are open. Then you have guys like Rose and Jimmy who should be a little more selfish since they are designated scorers, but I feel like they are trying too hard to get rest of team involved...who, per my prior point, would rather that designated scorers take open shots.

3) Lazy passes...that seems more solvable.

You guys see things differently?

The other 2 points seem to be accurate though

[pylb]

There's not quite enough off ball movement for my taste. Sharing the ball is nice and moves the defense, except if everyone's standing still and we're just passing it from the right wing to the top of the key to the left wing to the left block and everyone's just standing there ball watching.

[Mech Engineer]

There's not quite enough off ball movement for my taste. Sharing the ball is nice and moves the defense, except if everyone's standing still and we're just passing it from the right wing to the top of the key to the left wing to the left block and everyone's just standing there ball watching.

Yeah. ..it is just not ball movement but also a lot of player movement would help. I hate Joakim's play especially outside the paint. He is too easy to figure out for any smart defense.

[dice]

derrick certainly isn't over-passing. i don't think anyone else is either. we've been pretty successful when swinging it around

[Sparky134]

I agree about some of these thread-the-needle passes. I want to blame it on just poor execution but some of these passes I just put my hands in the air like "WTF did you think was gonna happen there, dude?" so really I think a lot of it is poor decision-making, too. I'm all about ball movement, but some of the passes I've seen lately just have no chance.

[FriedRise]

I don't think we're over-passing. I'd rather have them do that and risk a couple turnovers than play a stagnant offense where everybody stands around watching one guy play ISO. That's not fun to watch and every shot is almost always contested. When you look to pass, everyone has to move around to make themselves open and avoid a turnover. This puts pressure on the defense and over time increases your chance to shoot a high-percentage shot.

That said though, there are times when guys are too trigger-shy to shoot when they're wide open. The two worst offenders are Niko with his pump-faking nonsense (which only results in his defender catching up to him) and Noah when he's at the top of the key. Noah's case is understandable since he's typically not a great shot from that range (he's not Gasol). But when you have the ball and you're wide open, you have to shoot.

[Mobby]

I don't think we're over-passing. I'd rather have them do that and risk a couple turnovers than play a stagnant offense where everybody stands around watching one guy play ISO. That's not fun to watch and every shot is almost always contested. When you look to pass, everyone has to move around to make themselves open and avoid a turnover. This puts pressure on the defense and over time increases your chance to shoot a high-percentage shot.

That said though, there are times when guys are too trigger-shy to shoot when they're wide open. The two worst offenders are Niko with his pump-faking nonsense (which only results in his defender catching up to him) and Noah when he's at the top of the key. Noah's case is understandable since he's typically not a great shot from that range (he's not Gasol). But when you have the ball and you're wide open, you have to shoot.

Yep, but it seems like Niko is indeed getting a bit better at this.

[clancyphile]

I don't think we're over-passing. I'd rather have them do that and risk a couple turnovers than play a stagnant offense where everybody stands around watching one guy play ISO. That's not fun to watch and every shot is almost always contested. When you look to pass, everyone has to move around to make themselves open and avoid a turnover. This puts pressure on the defense and over time increases your chance to shoot a high-percentage shot.

That said though, there are times when guys are too trigger-shy to shoot when they're wide open. The two worst offenders are Niko with his pump-faking nonsense (which only results in his defender catching up to him) and Noah when he's at the top of the key. Noah's case is understandable since he's typically not a great shot from that range (he's not Gasol). But when you have the ball and you're wide open, you have to shoot.

I have to agree, but not because it means the offense isn't stagnant. I think it's taking advantage of the outstanding depth the Bulls have demonstrated this season.

There are nine Bulls who have scored 20 or more points in a game. In some cases, there is likely to be five guys who have done so on the court at the same time (think having Rose, Butler, Snell, Gasol, and Mirotic on the court together as one such combo). With this sort of depth, a lot of passing can force the other team to back off double-teaming players - and right now, I think that Rose, Gasol, and Butler can beat many players one-on-one, and when you add Mirotic and Snell... someone's gonna get open quick, especially with a few passes around the place, and that someone will more often than not make the other team pay.

[ralphisBullsFan]

i don't understand it, this season he looks like Asik in his rookie year...i don't remember him having this problem in the past, at least not this bad...whether its rose,kirk,brooks ect. passing him the ball when he dives to the basket in the paint he fumbles the pass and blows the easy 2...can you really lose coordination from time off due to injury?

this past half decade of being a bears and bulls fan has taken years off my life....

[TimRobbins]

You never dribble pass it to a big and that's what the guards are doing.Also, post injury Noah has ZERO explosiveness so even when he gets it, he's a terrible finisher in traffic.

[nubeerski]

He embarrasses me everything he has the ball in the paint. I try to look away.

[Rerisen]

Bulls had a 28th ranked offense last year. All the hubaloo and amazement over Noah's passing and 'running the offense' was a lot overblown. Though last year's Noah was a much superior player, who could at least still convert easy finishes.

[maynardo]

He always stinks as the roll man in PnR's for some reason never catches the ball as he rolls, so I agree with you. But this year in general Jo hasn't been good in any aspect really, he has had a few good games that kinda reminded you he was DPOY last year, but as a whole he has sucked

[PrimzyBulls81]

He is the heart of the team and big warrior,but his decline lately and injuries are just anoying.. Even if we want to re-build a bit in off season and maybe trade Noah and Taj away,it would be hard,because Noah value is dropping down..