PG: Close, but no cigar

[RSP83]

Lavine gets mugged and isn’t getting calls he just needs to realize what’s happening and play through it

I said this in the game thread: Lavine's frustration showed in this game. He could learn from Demar (who seems to keep his composure).

This. Lavine lost his cool. He can't do that. He was really bothered with not getting calls. But he can't let that effect him. I remember Rose had to deal with something similar, but Rose rarely let it get to his head.

[Red8911]

Lonzo is on his way to becoming a legit guard version of Draymond Green.

Actually our Green reminds me a lot of Draymond Green. At least the effort and defensive part.

[Tetlak]

Billy didn’t go to Bradley soon enough. That allowed the Bulls to get some traction in the game.

Yeah, Alize is just a highly limited player. I think Bradley should have the backup C spot permanently.

[DuckIII]

That was a fun game. Even when we were down 12 I was enjoying it. Throwback defensive game in many ways by both teams. I loved it.

[mtron32]

We lost, in part, because we’re too small. Lonzo did a commendable job, but this problem is going to plague us all season long until we address it.

I’d love to know why we said no to Theis, Thad Young, and Nance. All three would help tremendously.

5th game of the season and our lack of depth was exposed by a single rough fall. Not great, Bob.

We knew that going in though

[Red8911]

People see what they want to see I suppose. NY controlled the game with their best player scoring a total of 13 points. NY lead by 13 with 2 minutes left in the game.

The final score might look close but the Bulls internally know that NY poses huge matchup problems for them.

BTW, if LaVine scores 13 points at MSG the Bulls would get run off the floor. They simply lack NY's scoring depth.

Kemba & Fournier were shrewd additions by NY. Veteran professional shot makers that can space the floor.

OTOH, NY basically left Lonzo unguarded and focused their defense on LaVine & DeRozan.

Knicks should be more worried after this. They played their best game and were hitting shots all game long while the bulls didn’t play well, yet they only lost by 1 pt. Knicks might have played better and won tonight but they are not the better team.

Agree, but they are still the better team until we prove we can be consistent, which they have been. I think we can but we hve to earn it still.

That’s fair. Regardless of who’s better I expect both these teams to be close in the standings throughout the season.

[weneeda2guard]

Some positives

We were resilient and never laid down. Vuc played well demar and lavine played ok

We really could have used coby off the bench in this game. It also may be time to give Derrick Jones Jr a run

I'm glad lavine played through his injury but his ball handling clearly looked compromised and I would imagine that might be why derozan got the last shot. I still would have liked lavine in is vs Fournier for the last shot. At worst I think lavine gets to the line.

In hindsight demar had a good shot. He just didn't sink it. Sure he wish he had another shot at that

We have to figure out how to get off to better starts and we have to find a solution to not give up so many offensive rebounds.

In the end we are a new team that literally got our first loss with a perfect preseason and regular season. Hopefully this motivates us to push harder for the next game. I hope we come out with more fire vs the jazz. We beat the jazz it will all but make up for this loss.

[mtron32]

Lavine gets mugged and isn’t getting calls he just needs to realize what’s happening and play through it

I said this in the game thread: Lavine's frustration showed in this game. He could learn from Demar (who seems to keep his composure).

This. Lavine lost his cool. He can't do that. He was really bothered with not getting calls. But he can't let that effect him. I remember Rose had to deal with something similar, but Rose rarely let it get to his head.

I full expect Billy to call that out in the film room after this, if he wants to be the man, he needs to be ice cold. Harden isn't even getting those calls anymore, LaVine just has to force the issue and go into the lane.....after his thumb is better.

[Michael Jackson]

We lost, in part, because we’re too small. Lonzo did a commendable job, but this problem is going to plague us all season long until we address it.

I’d love to know why we said no to Theis, Thad Young, and Nance. All three would help tremendously.

5th game of the season and our lack of depth was exposed by a single rough fall. Not great, Bob.

We knew that going in though

Agreed we can’t imagine we are a true contender, that we have no flaws… we are evolving from doormat to punchers chance which makes this team watchable. We haven’t been for years. Not just being watchable, we actually have a little real hope of being decent in the playoffs. Once again Nita title team but a team that can make a solid playoff team sweat. That is huge, monumental growth in one year.

[BloodyQ]

Some positives

We were resilient and never laid down. Vuc played well demar and lavine played ok

We really could have used coby off the bench in this game. It also may be time to give Derrick Jones Jr a run

I'm glad lavine played through his injury but his ball handling clearly looked compromised and I would imagine that might be why derozan got the last shot. I still would have liked lavine in is vs Fournier for the last shot. At worst I think lavine gets to the line.

In hindsight demar had a good shot. He just didn't sink it. Sure he wish he had another shot at that

We have to figure out how to get off to better starts and we have to find a solution to not give up so many offensive rebounds.

In the end we are a new team that literally got our first loss with a perfect preseason and regular season. Hopefully this motivates us to push harder for the next game. I hope we come out with more fire vs the jazz. We beat the jazz it will all but make up for this loss.

I thought they played decent in the first half, but just couldn't get Lavine or Demar going.

The 3rd quarter is where everything fell apart.

[Clyde_Style]

Entertaining game. This will be a good match-up the rest of the year. We almost threw away the game, but thanks to RJ’s defense ….. Bing Bong

[chifan1798]

Tough loss. My takeaways from the game:

- Rebounds are a problem…but Bradley came in the game, and immediately got a few offensive rebounds. Time to give him some more time!
- I feel like the Knicks controlled the game most of the way. Every time the bulls had a chance to take the lead, they couldn’t hit the shot…including at the very end.
- I see that the Knicks played a very good game. Was it their best? I think it was close to it, but not quite, because Randle played pretty poorly. I’ll credit the Bulls defense for that, and the fact Ball was playing terrific defense on him, even though he was undersized. That said, once the Bulls gel, I think that they could get solid wins against this team.
- Bulls defense is good, but they played a team that also was active. I feel like there were about 3 or 4 plays, where the bulls got the initial stop, but couldn’t come up with the hustle plays to get the loose ball, and get possession, and instead, the Knicks managed to get the ball back and score. If only one of those plays goes our way, and we complete the defensive possession, then we would have won the game. Another note on the defense, even though we saw the Knicks get some wide open threes, it is impressive that the bulls held them to under 30 attempts, when they were averaging 40+ per game
- It was great seeing Boozer, Deng, BG7, Dunleavy, Kurt, Nazr and Kukoc hanging out. Wonder if they’ll be back on Saturday too when it’s Kukoc’s night, or if we see some of the older guys like Pip, MJ, etc?
- The Barkley curse lives on

I expect a loss on Saturday, but hopefully after that, the Bulls can start another winning streak.

[Red8911]

Billy D needs to do a better job with his rotations in games like this. Was not happy with his timeouts. Was letting the Knicks slowly creep away without ever calling a timeout to kill momentum.

If Vuc is going to be out there, we need to use him. Lavine and Vuc had a good thing going on. They were doubling our guards... Need to run pnr and pnp all day against that. They were literally asking us to do it and we didn't do it. Was buckets all night.

This team needs a Daniel Thies type player soooo bad. They don't grow on trees, but we need to find one somewhere.

GUARDS NEED TO BOX OUT. Been a problem all season. Especially Zach when he is along the baseline. He's just ball watching.

Classic Thibs team tonight. Sad the Bulls didn't have it in them to match that intensity KNOWING how the Knicks would come out. Especially in the third quarter.

Final point... Glad we made that interesting in the end. Shows the team has heart. Hopefully they take this very PERSONALLY.

I feel like no one here has brought up Donovan’s rotations. I’m definitely not crazy about it. Could be wrong about this but looks like it’s all over the place with way too many random substitutions in and out all game long. Then Derozen was left out in the 4th when he should of been in the game sooner.

[Michael Jackson]

For once in many years, the sky is not falling and we are worried more about our 5th and 6th man than when we would quibble about who needs spots 13-15 on this team. I rejoice lol. I truly do. We aren’t scaring Milwaukee but we can scare Philly. Progress rather than perfection.

[RSP83]

My main takeaway from this game is I'm sold that we're a legit playoff team. And not the borderline 8th seed level, we're going to be fighting for that 3rd or 4th seed come April. We still have some loose screws to tighten, but I don't see anything that can't be fixed.

[yifsuibfe1]

I swear if there’s one blog that says “see, I told you they weren’t for real”

[kodo]

Everyone is going to talk about the final possession, but we lost because we were too small. The defense is one thing, size is another. We got killed on the boards for yet another game. And Randle was being defended by Lonzo & Caruso all game, leading to 10 FTs. That's basically game right there.

Not having even one big man on this roster the coach can trust to defend any big in this league is a red flag problem. This entire "throw PGs at the league's bigs" is never going to work. Lonzo blocking opposing centers at the rim only works for the Isaiah Stewarts.

AK threw all our eggs into the Patrick Williams gamble, and we're seeing the results.

[Clyde_Style]

Caruso was maybe your best pickup IMO. He’s a real PITA on defense and quite smart overall.

[Michael Jackson]

Entertaining game. This will be a good match-up the rest of the year. We almost threw away the game, but thanks to RJ’s defense ….. Bing Bong

I like RJ. He may never be a franchise cornerstone but he doesn’t need to be that. Man knows how to use his body. He can be the better version of Loul Deng sooner rather than later. He is showing consistent growth. If he keeps evolving him and Randle can open up everything for everyone else and each other. Knicks aren’t too heavy but have a lot of really good players and we all know Thibs can squeeze more juice out of players than anyone.

[Dan Z]

Why doesn't Lonzo get to the free throw line more often? Is it that he doesn't drive to the basket enough? I haven't watched him close enough to tell. He's not a small guy so you'd think he'd be better in this regard.