Jimmy Butler’s ISO-Ball Hog Game Is Inexplicably Back Against Celtics
The Chicago Bulls will always, always, always lose any game if Jimmy Butler regresses to ISO-ball jumpers.
The team only had 14 assists on Friday. Butler walked the ball up on five straight possessions and bricked five straight jumpers.
Just when I thought that Jimmy Butler had overcome his infuriating tendency – oh boy, here we go again. Sigh. The Bulls dug themselves into hole of Jimmy playing so bad that it cost them Game 3 of the first round match up with the Celtics.
In that game,Fred Hoiberg allowed Jimmy to run the team, and instead of setting up his teammates, he ran the old predictable plays that never work for him against Boston, allowing the opposing team to lock onto him, force bad shots, and put the Bulls in a hole so deep they couldn’t pull out of it.
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When the Marquette Alphas regress to ISO basketball instead of pushing the ball and finding teammates, Chicago loses ugly. We’ve seen this all season long. It led to a debacle with Jimmy making a bad teammate pose and getting admonished by Rajon Rondo that bad teammates don’t count. Jimmy forgot all that in Game 3. No assists at all? Come on, you gotta be kidding me. Seven out of 21 field goal attempts is so ugly that the minus-27 for the game should be framed and posted on Jimmy’s wall to remember that an ISO game does not work against a team that will score a run out 3-pointer for every one of his misses.
Just to make sure I’m not fibbing on this, the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Rosenbloom wrote the same thing about Jimmy’s game. And for good measure, the Tribune’s writer was hoping Jimmy could not get any worse than Game 3. The turnaround in the Bulls game after the five-game losing streak towards the end of the regular season came from Jimmy passing first to his teammates then getting a return pass when they couldn’t score so he could attack the rim. In Game 3, Jimmy was straight up walking the ball into jumpshots and it wasn’t working at all.
Michael Carter-Williams makes the same mistakes when he gets blinders attacking the hoop without checking for open teammates. Jimmy was guilty beyond reasonable doubt of regressing to the same bad habits that the Celtics know like the back of their hands. All those shots he missed could have been open, in-rhythm passes to open teammates from the perimeter.
If Rondo can’t play out the first round, it better be Grant who runs the show and a passing game instead of Jimmy shooting himself in the foot and guaranteeing a trade in the summer. Hoiberg and Butler should figure out fast that the ISO Jimmy game against Boston will be a series win for the Celtics.
In the Game 3 loss, the Chicago Bulls had only 14 assists. I rest my case about how Hoiball works and how Hoiball will never work. ISO-ball Jimmy should be a lost cause and never be resurrected.