GT #25: Bullets @ Bulls 8 PM (NBCSW/980 AM) [12/7/22]

[payitforward]

Tough loss. I'm not putting anything on anybody -- everybody came to play. We lost a close game on the road. No blame.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Daniel Gafford

Seventeen minutes. Ten points. Plus twelve.

Never heard from again.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Daniel Gafford

Seventeen minutes. Ten points. Plus twelve.

Never heard from again.

That’s definitely three times this season.

Wes Unseld Jr is not a good coach at all.

[WallToWall]

Well, we know how to tank well. That's a positive.
The last 2 mins of the game was where it was won and lost.

[TGW]

I really like Wes Jr, but he’s not ready.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Perfect tank loss. Of this brutal 16 game stretch this was one of the more winnable games, so great to get momentum on the tank early.

Plus young guys played some good ball. Really great third quarter led be Gafford, Deni, and Goodwin. I rather watch a like game tonight than watch the same old nightmare with Beal on the floor.

With that said, Kuzma and Porzingis look like they are both gunning for contracts, they just kill ball movement with a lot of unnecessary and questionable shots.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

WUJ is a great tank commander. Lost the game by going away from big lineup. And by playing Will Barton at all. He’s just terrible.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We’re not the most talented team. But we should get more out of this group than we’re getting.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I really like Wes Jr, but he’s not ready.

I don’t like a coach who hates on the wrong players. He’s definitely not ready because he prefers his stars dominate the ball instead of smartly crafting plays.

I don’t like Wes Jr. He loses winnable games. Scott Brooks was better than this coach.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

WUJ is a great tank commander. Lost the game by going away from big lineup. And by playing Will Barton at all. He’s just terrible.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We’re not the most talented team. But we should get more out of this group than we’re getting.

Totally sabotaged this game.

He’s improving the Wembegyana sweepstakes,

[TGW]

I really like Wes Jr, but he’s not ready.

I don’t like a coach who hates on the wrong players. He’s definitely not ready because he prefers his stars dominate the ball instead of smartly crafting plays.

I don’t like Wes Jr. He loses winnable games. Scott Brooks was better than this coach.

I tend to root for him because he’s a black coach, and there’s only a handful of them. But yea, I agree with you unfortunately.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Same as I feel about Mike Locksley.

Not a good coach if wins are what you seek. Great guy. But can he coach?

I say NO.

[80sballboy]

Good tank loss. It's tough to win when you basically have no bench and Barton has been a huge disappointment. I knew he was a chucker, but his shooting numbers were probably helped by playing with real players like Jokic, who move the ball. Defense is still rough and just not enough. Sure, kind of fun to watch w/o Beal but when the hell is Rui returning?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

With 2:00 left and the score 105-108, Porzingis looked off a wide open Kuzma and he shot and missed a 28-foot three. That miss left him 0-5 from 3pt.

The Bulls grabbed the long rebound, fast broke and scored three points on an and-1 layup. 105-111. Six point swing.

Porzingis missed a key free throw as well.

That’s the difference in winning and losing.

[Dolevi]

Porzingis thought that was the best shot to take right theree, a 27 foot three point shot with players all over him.

As I've said before in this thread, he's a great talented player, with bad habits. He loves to take some very hard contested shots plus it's hard for him to make the extra passes for an open man when needed. His making decisions in offense is one of the reasons his ceiling is limited. It's like you can leave all other players to come for help, bring double / triple team, and still most of the times, he'll just take the tough shot Still he ended up with 4 assists, but it could be a lot more.
Just need to check how much of KP's points are un-assisted/contested and that will tell the story. No wonder he ended 0/6.

When you have a player playing for his stats and not for his team, it's easy to tell and see. KP is one of them. And you have a lot of guys like that in this team and this is why we don't have enough ball movement.

And, it's also a symptom of course for a non-coached team, with one/more players who play and think they above the team. And if that's fine by the coach, then your problem is even bigger

[deneem4]

We need John wall…

[Frichuela]

Perfect tank loss. Of this brutal 16 game stretch this was one of the more winnable games, so great to get momentum on the tank early.

Plus young guys played some good ball. Really great third quarter led be Gafford, Deni, and Goodwin. I rather watch a like game tonight than watch the same old nightmare with Beal on the floor.

With that said, Kuzma and Porzingis look like they are both gunning for contracts, they just kill ball movement with a lot of unnecessary and questionable shots.

This.100%. Without Beal the ball movement is so much better and some of the youngsters (Deni in particular) play with more assertiveness.

[closg00]

WUJ is a great tank commander. Lost the game by going away from big lineup. And by playing Will Barton at all. He’s just terrible.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We’re not the most talented team. But we should get more out of this group than we’re getting.

You know how NFL teams have people viewing the game from high-up and relay real-time information to the coaches on what is and is not working? Why doesn't this apply to the NBA? Why isn't there someone is WUJ's ear telling him the big line-up was working, he seems to make this substitutions, then get's caught-up in trying to make things work with who is on the floor at the time.

[nate33]

Avdija looked real good. He really contained DDR and Lavine whenever he guarded them. And those guys scored at will whenever Avdija wasn't on them. In the middle of the 4th quarter, the Bulls finally committed to running a screen to get Avdija off of DDR. They just ran a 2-man game with Caruso (guarded by Kispert) setting a screen for DeRozan. It kept forcing the switch and Kispert provided no resistance at all. That's when they regained the lead. Deni really made some sweet passes too. He should have had like 10 assists but guys kept missing easy looks that he generated.

Kispert's terrible D was the reason Wes went with Barton for longer than he probably should. At least Barton has a chance of slowing down DeRozan. Kispert was good on offense though. He made two real nice plays off the bounce, one a drive-and-kick to the corner, and another a pick-and-roll as the ball handler. Kispert doesn't usually do that. It's a nice addition to his game.

Kuzma was really good on the open floor, attacking the rim. But he's gotta calm down with that wanna-be Magic Johnson thing when he posts up and tries to whip a cross-court pass. It's a turnover more than half the time.

Porzingis has made 1 of his last 18 3-point attempts. I don't mind that he shoots them - the threat of the 3-ball is one of the things that opens up spacing for everyone else. I just wish he'd be a little more judicious with his attempts. A 28-footer, early in the shot clock, when your feet aren't even set, is a bad shot.

I still don't like Morris that much as a starter. His numbers are solid, but his bad defense and inability to generate something out of nothing really hurt the team. You can't be a 6-2 poor defender without bringing anything to the table except the ability to hit an open shot on low usage. If we had a better defender in that role, it would be easier to hide Kispert on defense.

It would be nice if someone on the team other than Kispert could hit a 3.

[dobrojim]

I tried to post something last night but my iPad sometimes resets itself in the middle of
composing a post. Very frustrating. And with all the popup ads it's really balky to type on.

IIRC, what I was going to say it that we used a familiar formula to lose that game.
mediocre FT shooting (again) only this time we combined it with a eff-ton of TOs,
many seemingly unforced.

I'm becoming fickle about KP. He just seems too inefficient in a lot of games for
for a guy that plays the 5 (mostly). And there have been too many off nights where
he's jacking 28 ft 3s and missing 70-80% of them. CM is/was arguably correct calling Beal our
best player. But he (CM) still struggles to describe seemingly simple ****, like the score.
And CWS remains highly preferable IMO over Drew.

It really seems to me like we ought to be running more plays to get Kispert good looks.
He took only 8 shots. If we have to endure his subpar D, we should take better advantage
of the things he does do well, shoot and cut.