The Numbers Are Still Keeping It 100
After yesterday’s game, I dove into the numbers. Chicago and their fans are touting the stellar offensive rating and rebounding numbers. What isn’t being mentioned is their shocking inability to create offense through ball movement. When the ball moves, and produces scoring, assist numbers are inherently higher. The Bulls are struggling with this.
Derrick Rose almost single-handedly had more assists than the entire Chicago squad on Friday night. The Pacers didn’t match the productivity of the Knicks, but still crushed the Bulls, 27-15 in that category.
Assists could indicate several things, poor ball movement – which the Bulls qualify for – or a lack of players able to consistently hit shots – a big yes for Chicago, again, are two things I would imply from that number.
The Bulls do a lot of “ball movement” that looks like this Doug McDermott miss from Chicago’s first matchup against the Pacers this season:
This is a common action for the Bulls offense this season. But they also randomly ran much better action and don’t have the shooters to make the opponent pay. Fans and bloggers alike can try to convince themselves that Isaiah Canaan is Kyle Korver reincarnate, but that is far from the truth. Fortunately, McDermott has been more good than bad. When he’s on, he’s as good a shooter as Chicago has on the roster.
An elevator set!?
Transition!?
Unfortunately, they don’t run their offense consistently and it shows. If they ran elevators or moved the ball with lightning pace in transition regularly, I might be painting a different picture. But, I digress. Assists are not being produced in whatever variation of offense the Bulls are running and it probably has to do with the starting lineup. McDermott isn’t a part of that lineup and neither are Michael Carter-Williams – who is out with injury – or Nikola Mirotic. Of course, Mirotic has consistency problems of his own. He shot 40 percent from the field and 100 percent at the line on Friday night, but much like Wade, he had a major fall off on Saturday, shooting 0-for-6 with some awful defense.
The Bulls also have major turnover issues, committing more turnovers than the Knicks or Pacers in their weekend matchups. They shot worse from the field and 3-point range than both opponents. Some of it is genuinely head-scratching:
The new era of Hoiberg Rugby-Ball is upon us. Or this is just some genuinely sloppy basketball and miscommunication. Chicago has seemingly limitless issues with ball control. From offensive fouls to dribbling off their own feet to passing to no one in the middle of the floor to a team-wide inability to handle passes from Rajon Rondo, it’s an issue. They keep finding more and more ways to turn the ball over in situations that they should be making into scoring opportunities.
All the rebounding in the world can’t cover up the tremendous woes in other areas like passing and shooting which are kind of, you know, important.