Bulls-Rockets: Three Takeaways From A Long Distance Barrage
The Chicago Bulls were thoroughly outgunned by the James Harden-less Houston Rockets. Here are three takeaways from the game.
Though Bulls fans would love to skip ahead to Zach LaVine’s Bulls debut this weekend, we’ll have to sit through a few ignominious defeats first. The visiting Houston Rockets got first dibs this week. The final margin of Houston’s victory over the Chicago Bulls was 116-107, but it was only that close at the end of the game, when Chicago was plum out of time.
Wow the Rockets are great
The Rockets threatened to turn things into a blowout early on, outscoring Chicago 35-22. Chicago clawed their way back into things in the second half, and even wrested back the lead from the Rockets in the middle of the third quarter.
After Trevor Ariza knocked down three consecutive triples in the middle of the fourth quarter, the game was effectively over at 106-88 with 4:50 left in regulation. A quick side note on Trevor Ariza: the 32 year-old starting small forward is enjoying another very solid year for the Rockets. Last night, he had 18 points, including going six-of-13 from deep.
Houston took an insane amount of three-pointers on the night, connecting on 20 of 54 attempts. Chicago, meanwhile, made a significantly more pedestrian 12 of 28 three-pointers. That 24-point disparity was a big one. With this personnel, they felt virtually unstoppable and their best player didn’t even play. The Bulls’ best player, to be fair also didn’t suit up, but I doubt even the much-improved Nikola Mirotic could have saved the Chicago Bulls on this night.
According to Nick Friedell of ESPN, last night marked the 35th straight game that Houston made 10 or more three-point shot attempts. That extends their NBA record for that level of output.
Chris Paul and Eric Gordon led the way, with MVP candidate James Harden still out of commission. Gordon had 24 points, nine assists and six rebounds. CP3 poured in 24 points, nine assists and eight rebounds.
Clint Capela is the future of the NBA center — and Cristiano Felicio is not.
Clint Capela is a super athlete, and probably a future All Star. Capela knows his lane. He swarmed the paint in Chicago, pulling down 16 rebounds and scoring 15 points on putbacks and rolls to the rim.
Capela is effectively Chris Paul’s new DeAndre Jordan, an athletic roll man running at a D’Antoni fast break pace.
To be fair, Capela was facing off for seven brutal minutes against Cristiano Felicio. Nikola Mirotic was unable to suit up after being felled by a stomach bug. When Felicio wasn’t covering Capela, he had a much tougher cover. Houston ran several quick switches on Felicio designed to shift the Brazilian center onto Chris Paul.
Felicio consistently fouled Paul in those situations, as the Point God capitalized on Felicio’s sluggish footwork. He logged four points, three rebounds and three fouls. Felicio could become a legitimate part of the Chicago rotation, unfortunately.
Lauri Markkanen needs more looks
The kid is just a heck of a shooter. There should never be a night where Denzel Valentine gets more looks than Lauri Markkanen. Unfortunately, that’s been a recurrent issue this season. Valentine had a solid line, of 19 points, eight rebounds, and five assists, but a lot of those stats were padded late with the game already out of reach. Valentine’s horrific defense undoes any of his value on offense. His charge tonight was Trevor Ariza who, predictably, had a great night.
Bobby Portis, too, is an overvalued Chicago role player who needs the rock way less than the rook. Sure, Portis connected on nine of his 17 attempts, but his middling defense impeded on his effectiveness on the other side of the ball.
BP’s shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to offense isn’t the most Hoibergian method, either. The promising Bulls pup had 16 points, going six-of-10 from the field and three-of-five from beyond the arc, to go along with eight rebounds. Both numbers were above his season averages, and the ace shooter took fewer shots than Portis, Valentine, and Kris Dunn!