Chicago Bulls vs. Los Angeles Lakers Game Outlook

Bench Defense

There aren’t nearly as many words to try and explain what’s going on with this bench and playing defense.

Honestly, it was a completely beating at the hands of Jamal Murray and the Nuggets last week. But it also happened against the Lakers earlier in November.

Here’s a nasty look:

Lou Williams might as well have just dribbled up to Denzel Valentine and whispered in his ear, “Child please.” Now, Valentine is young, but that’s a bad look for a defender that had good intentions. Sure, you don’t want to rush the ballhandler and watch him kick it to the wide-open guy you just ran by, but you can never get caught between the two, guarding no one.

There was more, much more!

I don’t fully blame Bobby. It’s easy to dump on the young man right now. He’s been bad on both ends of the floor, very bad. Still, if Jerian Grant can’t follow his player in motion and trips you up, that’s not on you. That’s a full team situation.

Now, this one:

This is on Portis all day. Embarrassed by a guy name Larry. That is absolutely all on him and shouldn’t happen. It’s good work by the Lakers, but their degree of difficulty was incredibly low when the defender was left standing still. It’s just like when a goalkeeper in soccer fails to position himself correctly and just watches to ball go into the net, caught flat-footed.

All this ugly happened in a win, so they don’t have to be perfect. The margin of error will be slim, but they will have a margin and will likely use all of it.