The Bulls kept playing through the post
The final takeaway from Monday night’s game involves the crazy amount of time the Bulls played through the post.
It’s not necessarily surprising, as the starting lineup of Grant, Wade, Carter-Williams, Gibson and Lopez is a group full of non-shooters, but it still was quite interesting to watch Chicago’s offense throughout the game.
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The strategy appeared to involve setting an off-ball screen for either Wade or Carter-Williams, and then tossing them the ball once they got a little bit of space in the post. From there, the players would either try and back their man down, dribble out of the post and take it back to the top of the key, or kick the ball out before it found someone else down low.
Although the game plan probably isn’t the best idea for all future games (and won’t be the plan once Jimmy Butler is back in the lineup), it worked against Sacramento. Carter-Williams kept spinning past the smaller Darren Collison or Ty Lawson, Wade was putting the moves on Matt Barnes and Ben McLemore, and Taj Gibson was playing tough like usual on the block.
Watching the Bulls in this game almost felt like you were watching old school basketball (minus all the crazy threes by Nikola Mirotic, of course).
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And if the Bulls starting lineup doesn’t shake up during the All-Star break, you can continue to expect this style of play from Chicago
(Poor Fred Hoiberg.)