In order to win Game 5, Bulls must restore their passing attack

A balanced passing attack for the Chicago Bulls should allow the others outside of the stars — Bobby Portis, Nikola Mirotic and Paul Zipser — to deliver perimeter shots needed to keep the Boston Celtics off-balanced and a Game 5 victory.

Even with Jimmy Butler having a monster game going to the free throw line in Game 4, the Chicago Bulls could barely keep up with the Boston Celtics because Fred Hoiberg got duped into matching up with a small ball lineup when his team has the much better bigs in the series.

The obvious Hoiball solution is to get a passing game going with Isaiah Canaan attacking the rim like Rajon Rondo and the Marquette Alphas of Butler and Dwyane Wade running out instead of being on the other end of the court walking the ball up the floor.

The opposite of that was what made Jerian Grant and Michael Carter-Williams insertions for Rondo a bad idea. They played to score at the rim instead of looking for teammates to get their shooting game going.

Also, playing with jitters in a crucial playoff game probably got to Grant and Carter-Williams, who played out of position a lot. He should be playing as the trapping wing defender and not as the stay in-your-face lockdown defender because he could not chase Isaiah Thomas all over the court.

Plus, he was overlapping the scoring guard position with Wade, who plays the same type of game Carter-Williams plays.

The Bulls had 14 assists in the Game 3 blowout loss (where Butler had zero assists) and just 19 assists in the Game 4 loss to the Celtics (Butler had nine, while Canaan had 3).

In Games 1 and 2, the Bulls had Rondo coordinating a passing game and getting the team to generate 22 assists in the first win (five Bulls had at least three assists, including Bobby Portis and Jerian Grant) and 28 assists in the second win (Rondo had 14, Butler had eight).

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Butler had some good passes in Game 4, but throughout the rest of the game, Butler was looking for his own shot, even when the lanes were clogged with Celtics.

Hoiberg must stop running the ISO Jimmy option ASAP or he’ll lose the series. Brad Stevens has Butler’s game in a box and if it is the only thing Hoiberg can pull out of his playbook, then kiss the first round upset goodbye. The more they move the ball and look for strong scoring options aside from Butler, the game will be easier for them.

Even when the rooks miss or if Mirotic bricks a few shots, Butler must still feed them the ball and only attack the rim when the ball swings back in rhythm. Shooting rhythms are generated by moving the ball around and finding the shooter at just the exact moment and not as a last option when either Marquette Alpha can’t get a shot off.  The quicker the passing, the easier it is to throw the defense out of sync.

Heck, Boston does it with the guy in the paint whipping an overhead pass to the corner shooter and the Bulls defense reads this play perfectly already. Butler intercepted one pass in Game 4 just like it.

Chicago can give Boston a dose of its own medicine by whipping the ball back-and-forth, inside-out until Butler or the other shooters has an open lane or if Lopez is one step away from the rim, or even that two-second span when a Bulls’ shooter is open and the pass is there.

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Wait one second too long and you throw the shooting rhythm out of whack and the open shooter needs to calibrate his aim and form when the pass comes unexpected, like when Butler can’t get a shot off.

If Butler has to play the half-court sets as the intiator, the Bulls lose one deadly player who should be sneaking around the rim for putbacks or attacking off-ball.

If Jimmy is on the ball, all the Celtics need to do is shut down the lanes.

Canaan can actually play a Nate Robinson-kind of game driving into the lane and getting pocket passes to rim diving Butler/Wade/Lopez. Even Denzel Valentine can initiate a running attack as long as his teammates run out. Butler must be at the opposite end of the court attacking ahead of the defense and not behind walking the ball up.

The Bulls have already found something for Isaiah Thomas’ sneaky game. All they need to do is not fall into the trap desperately trying to stop a 5-foot-9 player at the expense of their own free-flowing offense by having odd players on the court like Joffrey Lauvergne instead of Lopez.  Boston chucks up enough bricks for the Bulls to bolt ahead or catch up when they are behind.

In the playoffs, especially on offense, every basket counts. Defenses can only stop so many shots.  But if a Hoiball team can’t run its passing offense, then we’ll be watching the same old mistakes from the past two seasons — including the Cleveland series with Tom Thibodeau where Thibs did not play his shooters at all — and with heavy isolations from Butler attacking a wall and costing the team a game or a series.

Next: From 2-0 to 2-2: How did the Bulls get here?

Helping teammates get going makes it easier to win. I’m crossing my fingers that Hoiberg figures out quickly how Stevens is goading him to make match-up mistakes by defending instead of scoring more than the opponent, which is how a playoff team goes on to the next round.