Three takeaways from another dumb Bulls win
Will the tanking Chicago Bulls ever lose a game again? The Bulls won their third straight game, defeating the Charlotte Hornets 120-114.
Despite Fred Hoiberg’s best (worst?) efforts, and a slew of absences, the Chicago Bulls won their third straight game. They defeated Dwight Howard, Kemba Walker and the Charlotte Hornets, 120-114, in the United Center. Despite Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine, Denzel Valentine, Antonio Blakeney, and the immortal Paul Zipser all being out for the year, Chicago persevered.
Hoiberg hinted that starting center Robin Lopez, who did not play last night, may be done for the season as well. Hoiberg was actually absent for Chicago’s weekend win over the Washington Wizards. Associate head coach Jim Boylen apparently did not get the memo about Chicago tanking and blew out a playoff team with his healthy personnel.
Last night, we were treated to more of the same. Lauri Markkanen, the Bulls’ best player, logged just 24 minutes of game time, in a valiant effort by Hoiberg to limit his effectiveness. It was to no avail, as The Finnisher averaged a point a minute, and collected seven rebounds to boot.
In the fourth quarter, mostly without Markkanen, new Bull Sean Kilpatrick took over. Kilpatrick, by the way, really doesn’t need to be on the team right now. The well-traveled bench shooting guard scored 19 of his 21 total points in the game’s final 12 minutes. More on that in a bit. The Hornets, “led” by “All-Star” Kemba Walker and “Hall of Famer” Dwight Howard, were so lackadaisical on defense at times that even Stacey King and Neil Funk took notice. Walker put up a pathetic nine points and four assists against starting Bulls point guard Cameron Payne. Howard put up 23 points and 17 rebounds and still managed to look outmatched when it mattered against Felicio.
Here are your three takeaways.
Lauri Markkanen is a beast. Shut him down.
What the heck are the Bulls doing? What happened to the tank? The Bulls’ terrific rookie power forward has played 65 games thus far. That should be more than enough to make the All-Rookie First Team, which clearly must be the goal. Joel Embiid made that list last year with a scant 31 games player last year. Markkanen made eight of 14 field goal attempts. That number included going five of six from beyond the arc. He also made all three of his free throws to score 24 points and, as I had mentioned, he pulled down seven boards. Markkanen did all of his offensive damage in the game’s first three quarters — since, again, Chicago is trying to lose.
Sean Kilpatrick is a meaningless success story. Shut him down, too.
It’s cool that the unheralded 6’5″ shooting guard out of Cincinnati had a nice night. Kilpatrick and Malik Monk were the story of the fourth quarter, trading buckets all the way. Monk, the Hornets’ much-ballyhooed rookie project, scored 21 points, too. But it’s not cool that said night came in a winning effort. Sean Kilpatrick, currently 28, will not be a part of the Bulls’ future when the team is ready to compete. The Bulls primarily added him to fill up cap space. Now it’s time for him to fill up bench space, and clear out some court time for Ryan Arcidiacono to stink up the joint for 40 minutes a night. It’s going to be ugly, but it needs to happen. Chicago is danger of losing further ground in the lottery odds to the New York Knicks, people! These are troubling times.
The Bulls are apparently unable to tank
Chicago was up one mere point on Charlotte, a team that, last night, was technically still in the playoff hunt, with four minutes to go. With the loss, the 34-45 Charlotte Hornets were officially eliminated from playoff contention. The moxie and hustle of David Nwaba, Cristiano Felicio, Arcidiacono and Jerian Grant fueled Chicago’s pulling away to another dispiriting victory. With the defeat, Chicago slid to ninth in Hoops Rumors’ reverse rankings. Their 27-51 record is just three games shy of the 24-54 Dallas for the fifth-best 2018 lottery odds. Chicago must stop winning at once! Play Omer Asik and Arcidiacono 48 minutes apiece, Fred. Please.