The Chicago Bulls bounced back from their embarrassing performance against the Cavaliers with a double-digit victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday night. It was a much-needed win for the Bulls as they continue to play shorthanded in the absence of Zach LaVine and more recently, Troy Brown Jr.
The win puts the Bulls back into the 11th spot in the Eastern Conference, just one half of a game behind the Washington Wizards. They are tied with the Toronto Raptors record-wise, but the Bulls hold the tiebreaker between those two.
With an absolutely brutal schedule remaining, the Bulls needed to get the win in this game. It will be tough to carry the momentum considering their remaining difficulty of schedule.
The Bulls face a lot of playoff teams in their remaining games, starting with the Miami Heat on Saturday night. It is an uphill battle to even make the play in-game for the Bulls, but anything is possible in today’s NBA.
Takeaways from the Chicago Bulls win over the Hornets: 4 Quarters of Defense
I can’t recall the last time this happened for the Bulls. Tonight they played defense for the majority of all four quarters. Granted, it came against a sputtering Hornets offense that had no rhythm and could not find one all night, but still, that is progress for the Bulls defensively.
The Hornets highest-scoring quarter was the fourth, where they finished with 24 points. It feels like every game for as long as I can remember, the Bulls have allowed at least one 30 plus point quarter to their opponent. Not tonight.
Any other team would not get too hyped on this achievement, but these Bulls have been unable to stop anyone recently.
Charlotte shot just 8-31 (25.8 percent) from behind the arc. One game after getting exposed by the Cavaliers guards the Bulls held the Hornets guards in check and made them non-factors in this one. Devonte’ Graham and Terry Rozier combined to shoot 11-29 from the field.
Takeaways from the Chicago Bulls win over the Hornets: A Well Balanced Offensive Attack
The Bulls are without their best player right now, making every game interesting when it comes to who will show up offensively and how the team will find ways to score the ball.
If LaVine is going to miss an extended amount of time moving forward, this performance should be the blueprint for Billy Donovan and his staff. The ball was moving and finding the open man and that led to an efficient shooting game from the team as a whole.
The Bulls had five players score in double figures, with their three leading scorers all tied for 18 points on the night. Those three players were Nikola Vucevic, Coby White and Thaddeus Young. The three of them combined to shoot an impressive 23-33 from the field.
The two other Bulls that made it into double digits scoring-wise were Lauri Markkanen and Tomas Satoransky. It was a well-rounded attack that didn’t stop with those five, as Daniel Theis and Garrett Temple both chipped in nine points of their own as well.
The majority of the team shot well, with the few exceptions that shot decent and the one player who stuck out in his inability to play within the flow of the team offensively. That was Denzel Valentine, who shot 1-7 from the field in his 16 minutes on the court.
He was really the only player on the team that didn’t play well offensively in this one in terms of team basketball. Part of his 1-7 shooting was an 0-6 shooting performance from behind the arc.
Still, the Bulls had no issues overcoming one player struggling offensively as the rest of the team picked up the slack in a major way. This team has had issues maintaining any type of momentum all season, but hopefully that changes with this type of balanced offensive performance.
Takeaways from the Chicago Bulls win over the Hornets: Coby White and Nikola Vucevic Set the Tone Early
One of the Bulls biggest issues in their last game was the slow start they got off to. In that one, they managed to score a total of 12 points in the opening 12 minutes of the game. Simply put, that is unacceptable.
Coby White and Nikolva Vucevic made sure that did not happen again in this one. Both players dropped nine points in the first quarter, combining for 18. After the first, their 18 alone only trailed the Hornets team by five points.
This was exactly the kind of opening quarter the Bulls needed out of their two best scorers currently healthy. White and Vooch managed to set the tone and pace for the entire game with their brilliant opening quarters.
As the team got into a rhythm off of the play of those two, things came naturally to everyone else. That is why they each only finished with 18 points. They set the tone early but in no way forced things throughout the course of the game.
This was another in a bunch of very promising performances for White specifically. While he won’t ever be the traditional point guard of yesteryear, he can be an impact player and is showing a high court awareness more often than not in recent games.
Vooch, meanwhile, just did what should be expected from him on a nightly basis. He is an all-star caliber player and needs to play like one with or without the Bulls other all-star. If Vooch keeps up this play, it is possible the Bulls stay afloat through the absence of Zach LaVine.