PG - Matas good

[Seccci]

Also I had to double take and blink rapidly my eyes, I thought im hallucinating, but Patrick Williams had to be calmed down by VUC of all people ahahahaha
I mean, finally bro, wake up and actually use that gifted body,.plenty of people would do anything for that kind of blessing.

Also love AYO, but he is trying to do too much out there. Maybe thinking and pressing for future contract

[Seccci]

Thank God we had Huerter, he was our only real floor spacer. His defense is surprisingly solid. Really need Coby and Collins back. Pat was better than jalen.

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Huerter is winning me over. You can be a negative on defense in today's game as long as you are a ++ on offense and he does that more often than not off the bench.

+1 on Huerter, though he is who he is at this point as a player.
Also I noticed when he gets run out of 3pt line, he keeps dribbling and moving with ball to try to create something, which is correct reaction as u can than drive and kick for open shot... instead of hot potato it back and forth like others( but that might be coaching).

[GoBlue72391]

No reason. None at all for Dalen to get any mins.
Thought Billy was hijacking the game for the tank.

Sometimes he can energize the team with his hustle and defense, then other times it makes you wonder how he ever made the NBA in the first place.

[GoBlue72391]

Thank God we had Huerter, he was our only real floor spacer. His defense is surprisingly solid. Really need Coby and Collins back. Pat was better than jalen.

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Yes good point, that's something I forgot to mention, Huerter had some good moments on defense tonight for sure. A welcome surprise.

[Chi town]

We get the magic next in ORL. They will be on a back to back and 3 games in 4 nights stretch.

[The Force.]

So is Matas okay?

[Chi town]

Crazy pace and physicality across the whole league…

- Lots of injuries incoming

- Many teams won’t continue this high effort play

- Teams without depth are going to suck

[DuckIII]

We have something going with Giddey and Matas. Been a long since we’ve had two young players produce like this. They can be cornerstones for the next decade.

And they actually compliment each other to form the core of a logically constructed roster, rather than shoving puzzle pieces together by force.

Wait until we add Essengue. The three of them have the potential to be scary together.

[DuckIII]

Thank God we had Huerter, he was our only real floor spacer. His defense is surprisingly solid. Really need Coby and Collins back. Pat was better than jalen.

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Huerter is winning me over. You can be a negative on defense in today's game as long as you are a ++ on offense and he does that more often than not off the bench.

No offense intended and I might be projecting, but I assumed the pasty ginger shooter couldn’t defend either. But Huerter is a very solid defender. I felt this came through last year when I started to really pay attention to him a little extra. Give him a close look for a few games and I bet you’ll see it.

For example he’s much better than Zach or Coby on that end. Huerter is a bit of a two way player.

[DuckIII]

Good:

1. Matas is a franchise player. He put up 21/6/3 and wasn’t even being aggressive. He has it all mentally and physically.

2. Giddey picked up where he left off and looked terrific. Hopefully as the season goes on he’ll get more respect from the refs. Detroit was straight mugging him on drives all night long.

3. Vuc. Freaking awesome game by him.

4. Tre was instrumental to this win. Steadying force, effectively ran the offense, solid D. If he’s not the best non-rookie bargain deal in the league, who is?

Pretty Good:

Pat, Ayo, and Huerter.

Consistent with the only preseason game I was able to see, this is the most energized Pat has ever looked in the opening games of a season. He normally looks abysmal and lifeless for the first few games. Fingers crossed.

Bad:

Okoro: the idea was that the pace and full court style we play would help Okoro score a bit more. We’ll see. I thought he looked pretty poor all night, including being badly outplayed by Pat on D.

Smith: I have said BD’s failure to give him more run last year was confusing. If that was what BD has been seeing in practice, I get it now.

Terry/BD: Why did Terry play? And why the hell did those minutes come late in a tight game? He’s TERRIBLE. In an otherwise highly enjoyable night, his presence was like biting into a small turd nugget baked into the middle of a delicious chocolate cake. Just stop it.

[Seccci]

Good:

1. Matas is a franchise player. He put up 21/6/3 and wasn’t even being aggressive. He has it all mentally and physically.

2. Giddey picked up where he left off and looked terrific. Hopefully as the season goes on he’ll get more respect from the refs. Detroit was straight mugging him on drives all night long.

3. Vuc. Freaking awesome game by him.

4. Tre was instrumental to this win. Steadying force, effectively ran the offense, solid D. If he’s not the best non-rookie bargain deal in the league, who is?

Pretty Good:

Pat, Ayo, and Huerter.

Consistent with the only preseason game I was able to see, this is the most energized Pat has ever looked in the opening games of a season. He normally looks abysmal and lifeless for the first few games. Fingers crossed.

Bad:

Okoro: the idea was that the pace and full court style we play would help Okoro score a bit more. We’ll see. I thought he looked pretty poor all night, including being badly outplayed by Pat on D.

Smith: I have said BD’s failure to give him more run last year was confusing. If that was what BD has been seeing in practice, I get it now.

Terry/BD: Why did Terry play? And why the hell did those minutes come late in a tight game? He’s TERRIBLE. In an otherwise highly enjoyable night, his presence was like someone baking small turd nugget into the middle of a delicious chocolate cake. Just stop it.

+1, I was thoroughly enjoying bulls performance, everyone who come of the bench was hustling and than Jalen Smith starts jacking up shots nearly everytime he touch ball behind the line...

it got annoying, but still was hyped, than 4th quarter and terry minutes come and it got really frustrating. Not hating on Dalen, but he had already so many off seasons to improve his game, he had same head coach and he still looks like g league player. Theres just no point anymore.

I feel embarrassed to type this, but even Jevon freaking Carter makes more sense to come and see if he can get quick 1-2 three pointers in than terry or even Phillips.

Development is important when we have young team and minutes are a part of it, but there is also such a thing as opportunity cost. U give minutes to guys like terry/Phillips and in starter minutes even Patrick Williams and get nothing special, that hurts in the present but also future as u might miss on some bench player who could make the most of those minutes.

Might as well see what Noa has, literally cannot be worse unless he just commits back to back to back turnovers. Or even Lachlan over Jalen Smith if all he does is jack shots and play soft.

[dougthonus]

Good:

1. Matas is a franchise player. He put up 21/6/3 and wasn’t even being aggressive. He has it all mentally and physically.

2. Giddey picked up where he left off and looked terrific. Hopefully as the season goes on he’ll get more respect from the refs. Detroit was straight mugging him on drives all night long.

3. Vuc. Freaking awesome game by him.

4. Tre was instrumental to this win. Steadying force, effectively ran the offense, solid D. If he’s not the best non-rookie bargain deal in the league, who is?

Pretty Good:

Pat, Ayo, and Huerter.

Consistent with the only preseason game I was able to see, this is the most energized Pat has ever looked in the opening games of a season. He normally looks abysmal and lifeless for the first few games. Fingers crossed.

Bad:

Okoro: the idea was that the pace and full court style we play would help Okoro score a bit more. We’ll see. I thought he looked pretty poor all night, including being badly outplayed by Pat on D.

Smith: I have said BD’s failure to give him more run last year was confusing. If that was what BD has been seeing in practice, I get it now.

Terry/BD: Why did Terry play? And why the hell did those minutes come late in a tight game? He’s TERRIBLE. In an otherwise highly enjoyable night, his presence was like someone baking small turd nugget into the middle of a delicious chocolate cake. Just stop it.

How did you think Okoro was bad on D? He was the primary guy on Cade and absolutely shut him down almost all night long. I thought he was great on defense all night.

[MissileMike]

Good:

1. Matas is a franchise player. He put up 21/6/3 and wasn’t even being aggressive. He has it all mentally and physically.

2. Giddey picked up where he left off and looked terrific. Hopefully as the season goes on he’ll get more respect from the refs. Detroit was straight mugging him on drives all night long.

3. Vuc. Freaking awesome game by him.

4. Tre was instrumental to this win. Steadying force, effectively ran the offense, solid D. If he’s not the best non-rookie bargain deal in the league, who is?

Pretty Good:

Pat, Ayo, and Huerter.

Consistent with the only preseason game I was able to see, this is the most energized Pat has ever looked in the opening games of a season. He normally looks abysmal and lifeless for the first few games. Fingers crossed.

Bad:

Okoro: the idea was that the pace and full court style we play would help Okoro score a bit more. We’ll see. I thought he looked pretty poor all night, including being badly outplayed by Pat on D.

Smith: I have said BD’s failure to give him more run last year was confusing. If that was what BD has been seeing in practice, I get it now.

Terry/BD: Why did Terry play? And why the hell did those minutes come late in a tight game? He’s TERRIBLE. In an otherwise highly enjoyable night, his presence was like someone baking small turd nugget into the middle of a delicious chocolate cake. Just stop it.

How did you think Okoro was bad on D? He was the primary guy on Cade and absolutely shut him down almost all night long. I thought he was great on defense all night.

I think people see Cade scoring in the 4th and think he played poor D. But I was actually okay with him.

What surprised me this game, on offense, was how often Tre Jones was the primary ball handler over Giddey.

[Ice Man]

The main thing for this team's future, of course, is to see Matas & Giddey get the job done -- which they did last night. But it was the blast from the past that saved them. Without Vuc going off in the 1st, the Bulls don't build the big lead that they eventually needed.

Not sure how often we will see that version of Vuc -- not very, I suspect -- but that's what the Bulls need: a scorer to complement the efforts of Mat/Gid. Presumably that job is Coby's, when he is available.

[Chi town]

Good:

1. Matas is a franchise player. He put up 21/6/3 and wasn’t even being aggressive. He has it all mentally and physically.

2. Giddey picked up where he left off and looked terrific. Hopefully as the season goes on he’ll get more respect from the refs. Detroit was straight mugging him on drives all night long.

3. Vuc. Freaking awesome game by him.

4. Tre was instrumental to this win. Steadying force, effectively ran the offense, solid D. If he’s not the best non-rookie bargain deal in the league, who is?

Pretty Good:

Pat, Ayo, and Huerter.

Consistent with the only preseason game I was able to see, this is the most energized Pat has ever looked in the opening games of a season. He normally looks abysmal and lifeless for the first few games. Fingers crossed.

Bad:

Okoro: the idea was that the pace and full court style we play would help Okoro score a bit more. We’ll see. I thought he looked pretty poor all night, including being badly outplayed by Pat on D.

Smith: I have said BD’s failure to give him more run last year was confusing. If that was what BD has been seeing in practice, I get it now.

Terry/BD: Why did Terry play? And why the hell did those minutes come late in a tight game? He’s TERRIBLE. In an otherwise highly enjoyable night, his presence was like someone baking small turd nugget into the middle of a delicious chocolate cake. Just stop it.

How did you think Okoro was bad on D? He was the primary guy on Cade and absolutely shut him down almost all night long. I thought he was great on defense all night.

I think people see Cade scoring in the 4th and think he played poor D. But I was actually okay with him.

What surprised me this game, on offense, was how often Tre Jones was the primary ball handler over Giddey.

Giddey was being defended by Ausar. Then Holland.

Enough said.

[RSP83]

I like that Matas seems to know how to balance between playing with and without the ball. Really encouraging to see that from a 21 year old. I think he'll average around 15 points per game this year, and ready to make a big jump next year.

Giddey is slowly regaining his late last season's form. Still too sloppy for my liking. But I'm confident that he'll clean that up as the season progresses.

[drosestruts]

We have something going with Giddey and Matas. Been a long since we’ve had two young players produce like this. They can be cornerstones for the next decade.

And they actually compliment each other to form the core of a logically constructed roster, rather than shoving puzzle pieces together by force.

Wait until we add Essengue. The three of them have the potential to be scary together.

How quickly we forget about Coby White who would also fit with the above three players

[kodo]

Giddey was being defended by Ausar. Then Holland.

Enough said.

Agreed, he got their toughest defenders and they have some of the best in the league. I'm kinda surprised he scored very efficiently with 19 points on 12 shots. The TOs definitely reflect him getting that attention.

He waved the ball away from himself and directed Tre to run the plays on the opposite floor from himself, it was a good call even though Tre just turned it over on one of the crucial last plays.

I think it was more of a case that Giddey/Billy wanted the action on the opposite side from the best defenders, and healthy Coby would have just scored but Tre is extremely reluctant to shoot so he ran P&R action.

[drosestruts]

It's only game one so I'm not going to crown myself yet but I saw a couple of my predictions unfold tonight

Our pace is going to give teams problems and we saw that on display in the first quarter, especially. The game did slow down in the 4th and we struggled some with that. This is particularly an area where we missed Coby.

Another it's just one game moment, but in the Okoro trade threads I mentioned he was always a big +/- darling while in Cleveland. Many have rightfully pointed out issues with individual game +/-; I do believe it's a good directional stat over a larger sample size, and am curious to see if Okoro's trend of strong +/- continues. He made an impact on the game without shooting well.

I'm over here wanting to buy out Vuc and sign just about anybody and for one night here he told me to shut my mouth and know my role. Great game by the big man.

Probably most import was the quality play from Giddey and Matas. Timely buckets, highlight plays, and strong play overall. Great to see! During the offseason I mentioned that Giddey maintain his late season free throw rate would be arguabally more important than maintain his hot three-point shooting. 11 free throws for Giddey and 7 for Matas is huge. If we can play with this pace and get to the line - ooooo boy!

Pat aggressivley grabbed some rebounds which was nice to see. He's still finding new and unique ways to step out of bounds while on offense. At this point i'm not sure if i'm mad or impressed.

Jalen Smith and Dalen Terry played very poorly. If White and Collins are healthy I'm not sure either see the floor. We also did have players in foul trouble which could have also resulted in Terry playing as much as he did. I love when players play with high energy - Noah is probably my favorite Bull ever (yeah you heard me), Terry plays with energy but not in a way that seems to help. In this game alone you can see the contrast between Terry's energetic play and Holland's energetic play.

Speaking of Detroit

I feel like their team is built as if Cade is on the level of Luka or Harden and I'm just not sure that's the case. The dropoff between Cade and the next best player looks pretty steep.

Duren is big and athletic, but I'm not convinced he's actually good. Will be a big decision for Detroit on if they retain him and how much they pay him.

Thompson and Holland definitely give the Pistons some young players to be hopeful about.


Let's keep it going and get another win in Orlando

[drosestruts]

lowlight of the game - Holland posterizes Jalen Smith who then immediatley tries to follow it up by attempting to dunk on the Pistons and just doesn't at all have the lift or athleticism to do so.

Real questions - has Smith's bounce always been this pedestrian?