PG: Bulls Lose to The Worst Team In the League

[Chi town]

Well at least there was this…

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[ch434355]

Vucevic is trade bait. There, I said it.

This L wasn't on Vuc. That's just nothing more than scapegoating. Did he have a great line? No, not at all. But he wasn't responsible for the lack of the hustle, the chucking, all the turnovers, and running out small ball lineups who, somehow, were unable to cover up the 3pt line and let Houston shoot 47% from 3.

I never said the loss was on him. I said he was worth trading. All he ever has are games like you describe. We traded for an all-star. We knew his defense would suck, but he just never takes over offensively like he should.

If he's not being a great scorer, this team can't afford his defense. I think he has good trade value and we can get something that hels us more.

[ch434355]

O Booooo Hoooo, we're 12-7 and lost to the worst team in the NBA. Get over it lol. It's a long a season, a new team, new players, players in and out of the line-up, role still being defined etc.

Get the bad losses out of the way early, learn from them and become a better team later when it matters.

The Wizards just lost to the Pelicans by 25.

Let's not act entitled now. We have a good team and a very high ceiling.

Dissapointing but it's just a game. Let's move forward.

With the upcoming schedule, they could be barely above .500 in a couple weeks. It was looking like we could be a top 4 seed, but this is a massive buzzkill

Didn't we just go through this?? We went 8-4 in that stretch everyone was so worried about. Not only did they play well, but they were short handed and still learning to play with eachother

We'll definitely end up a top 4 seed. Too talented not to. Still have a trade deadline to improve plus the buyout market.

Not to mention, the improvement of team chemistry as the year progresses.

That stretch ended up not being that tough, when you look at who we actually faced. We caught a lot of teams without great players, and a lot of decent but not great teams. The upcoming stretch is way tougher.

[StephenAA]

*
Vuc passing up a wide open 8-footer to shoot it out to someone at the 3-point line, and then Zach dribbling into a triple team time after time, says all you need to know about their confidence and intelligence...

My 14-year old daughter has a higher BB IQ than Zach Lavine. The guy just acts soooooo cocky - He struts when he walks and he hasn't won s***. I think we're clearly seeing why Zac and Vuc have never played on "winning" basketball teams...

No more words can describe how disappointed I am...

AA

[kulaz3000]

Glad I missed this one. Clearly, I have nothing to add in terms of how we played, but seeing how things are playing out across the league, things are evening out slowly but surely. Teams who went from the lottery to hot starts are slowly coming back down to earth, better teams who started off slow are coming together.

That's not to say we are going to fall down to being a fringe playoff team, but all things considered, injuries, players coming back from long layoffs, players playing long stretches at positions they don't usually play. The fact that the Bulls mustered some of the wins that they had already, especially during the West Coast trip was freaking fantastic.

These are the type of losses they can bring a team together, sometimes you need a bit of a b**ch slap across the face to get the team to focus. But they also need a little flake, we are one of the hardest working teams, top to bottom, I mean you have players like Alex, Lonzo defending big bodies, and other players playing out of position, over time it takes a toll on your body. I think they are generally tired after the road trip.

Nothing to panic about, we will right the ship.

[The Force.]

Seems like teams are figuring out how to defend the Bulls. Basically throw hard traps at Zach and DD playing 3-2 zone, forcing our role players to make plays. If they’re hot it’s not very effective, but when the shots don’t fall our offense devolves into a brick fest. Couple that with Vuc and Coby’s awful play and you effectively have a bottom 5 offense.

The defense isn’t much better with Vuc, Coby and DD out there. Teams can easily attack any one of those guys in P&R.

Then of course the cherry on top being our all-guard lineup that gets dominated on the glass nearly every game.

Some of these issues should self correct over time, others will require a rejiggering of the roster.


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[nitric0]

For what it’s worth the Heat lost and the wizards lost to NO.

[Mirotek]

Billy Donovan talking about players not being "internally motivated" to play games. Wonder who he's talking about

[ImSlower]

It's good to remember that this team has shown it can beat some really strong teams. A couple of those big wins were against undermanned squads, but so are we. It felt great to see us atop the East, but perhaps our red hot start got a lot of us a bit over-eager. It's still an incredibly small team and our star center is playing like a replacement level player. For now. I tend toward the Doug camp that he's a bum, but he is literally the reason we got DDR, so I suppose we gotta give Vuc credit for being a key cog in this new look team.

We'll even out our early wins with an ugly loss to the best team in the league and an absolutely dreadful loss to the worst team. Just a season ago, games like this trash happened a lot. Now it's an insult. Baby steps. I still think we gel into a threatening team in the playoffs, even if we aren't yet a conference finals favorite.

Wins sure are easier to watch than losses though, I'm sorry y'all had to see that stinker. I was working.

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

Some nights we look like a roster full of one-way guys except for Lonzo and Caruso kinda.

Throw in the burden of reintegrating Vooch and Coby - who are essentially no-way guys until they get right - and this team could be rudderless for a few games.

[Ice Man]

Welp. I did not see that coming.

[BloodyQ]

Billy Donovan talking about players not being "internally motivated" to play games. Wonder who he's talking about

The top 3 needs to set the tone and energy for the game....not guys like Caruso or Ayo....anything they bring is extra.

And the Orlando game is gonna be really tough, Vuc might just fold when the Magic (and their fans) turn up the pressure.

[MGB8]

Bulls are not a contender. Heck, without Pat (and Pat playing well), probably can’t crack top 4 in the East. Bucks starting to round into form, as are the Hawks. Heat are better than I thought, and Sixers, too. And Hornets, for that matter, though Celtics a bit under-performing. Brooklyn, while not looking great, is at the top of the East. Our expectations need to be reset to something more real.

BUT… this team is still worlds better than they were last season. And they sure as heck need to do better than they did tonight. Trap game, but after the beating that they took in Indy? Come on.

Gah… Coby White…. GarPaxs last miss. Cam Reddish, slow developing as he was, would have been the better call. Or Herro (damn that Pat Riley) or even Nassir Little. Or Rui to push Lauri.

[TheAlanParsons]

Yikes!

[Ice Man]

Iso DeMar has carried our bench through several games, but boy was Iso DeMar a bad look today. He crushed us late in the 3rd quarter when he repeatedly got stuffed, springing Houston for breaks.

Then again, how would that group score without Iso DeMar? The bench guys play very hard, I do like them, but they are noticeably lacking in half court talent. Well, Ayo might be something in a couple of years, but (as with Pat) you see only hints of that today.

[BloodyQ]

Bulls are not a contender. Heck, without Pat (and Pat playing well), probably can’t crack top 4 in the East. Bucks starting to round into form, as are the Hawks. Heat are better than I thought, and Sixers, too. And Hornets, for that matter, though Celtics a bit under-performing. Brooklyn, while not looking great, is at the top of the East. Our expectations need to be reset to something more real.

True, the next few weeks will be telling how the Bulls respond, whether the hot start was a fluke or not.

[cowraiser]

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

[MrSparkle]

The elephants are Coby and Vuc on defense, and then shooting poorly on top of that. You kinda hope one and/or the other comes up with a hot stretch where Demar and Zach can lay low after carrying the offense for the entire season. Of course they have the fresh off injury/covid excuse. Still a bummer seeing Vuc get cooked by Wood and then Sengun in half the minutes, and not really making them pay on the other end.

Coby looks legitimately high sometimes.

[Payt10]

The Knicks and Warriors losses earlier in the season are really the only two losses that I look at as honest/respectable.

They've had good wins, but their losses have been brutal. I don't like the offense or defense at this point. Teams have made adjustments to the Bulls, but it doesn't feel like the Bulls have been making adjustments to how other teams are playing them, and I find that alarming. They are 6-6 in their last 12.

[kodo]

Seems like teams are figuring out how to defend the Bulls. Basically throw hard traps at Zach and DD playing 3-2 zone, forcing our role players to make plays. If they’re hot it’s not very effective, but when the shots don’t fall our offense devolves into a brick fest. Couple that with Vuc and Coby’s awful play and you effectively have a bottom 5 offense.

The offense wasn't really what caused the loss, overall it still ended up fine. 46% FG, 43% 3P shooting.

Teams have figured out how to beat the Bulls and it's even simpler than that, just attack our "bigs." Sengun is a fringe NBA player and he went straight at whoever was guarding him 1 on 1 and scored or assisted a 3 virtually every time he ran a play. All 3 of their bigs Wood, Sengun, and House destroyed the Bulls. Sengun & House were +7 and +9 off the bench.

This has been a consistent theme. Indiana did it, Aaron Gordon single handedly did it, Nurkic & Nance did it. This isn't a freak game, one off thing, bad night, tired legs, blown officiating call, or any of the other excuses. It's a fundamental problem with the Bulls because it's coming up every single game.