Chicago Bulls: Defending Brandon Ingram the key to beating the Pels

The first really intriguing matchup of the regular season slate is here for second-year head coach Billy Donovan and the Chicago Bulls on the night of Oct. 22. On this night, the Bulls are set to take on the New Orleans Pelicans at home at the United Center in the home opener. This will be a bigger challenge for the Bulls than they had in the regular season opener, which resulted in a win over the Detroit Pistons on the road on Oct. 20, by the final score of 94-88.

This Bulls team came out of the gates sluggish offensively. They scored just 40 points in the first half of the regular season opener against the Pistons earlier this week. But a second-half spark from star shooting guard Zach LaVine helped to push the Bulls to get the six-point win over the Pistons to open up what looks to be a promising regular season.

Facing the Pelicans in the home opener to start off a busy weekend for the Bulls, this game is the key to staying undefeated heading into next week. On Oct. 23, the Bulls have their second meeting with the Pistons in the span of four days. And that will be the second leg of back-to-back games this weekend.

But the focus, for now, lies on the meeting with the Pelicans in the home opener on Oct. 22. The Pelicans come into this game with a record of 0-1 following a sizable 20-point loss at the hands of the Philadelphia 76ers on Oct. 20.

Chicago Bulls can ride Zach LaVine to a win over Brandon Ingram and the Pelicans with Zion Williamson out

In that loss to the Sixers, the Pelicans also had a tough time getting their offense off the ground. The Sixers really shut the Pelicans down in the second half of that game, to the tune of just 44 points. Philly also outscored the Pelicans by a margin of 20 points in the second half as the two teams were tied coming out of the locker room after halftime.

Since the Bulls were a good second-half team in the win over the Pistons on that same night (Oct. 20), this should bode well for them if the offense can hit the ground running in this game heading into the weekend. LaVine’s 34 points helped the Bulls put up 54 points in the second half. And they held the Pistons to just 44 points in each half.

The defensive presence was very consistent in the regular season opener.

Moreover, the main task at hand for the Bulls against the Pelicans in the home opener will be to contain half of the star forward duo of Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. As he’s still working his way back from a foot procedure he had heading into the regular season, Zion looks to be out for this meeting between the Bulls and Pelicans.

With Zion out, much of the scoring load has fallen on the shoulders of Ingram. And he played well in the Pelicans’ season-opening loss to the Sixers. Ingram registered a game-high 25 points, seven rebounds, six assists, one block, and four turnovers. But to get those 25 points, Ingram had to take 26 attempts from the field, knocking down a dozen of them.

Racking up 25 points on 26 field goal attempts is not usually an ideal ratio. At a minimum, the Pelicans would expect to see Ingram stay on his usual pace from the last two seasons of scoring around 1.33 points per field goal attempt. That’s still not the best ratio of points per field goal attempt, but the Pelicans don’t have many other sources of offense to rely on at this point.

The Pelicans did get decent offensive production from the guard duo of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and the newly signed Devonte’ Graham in the opener. Those two combined for 41 points on 15-of-25 shooting from the field and 8-of-14 from beyond the arc.

But the Bulls should be able to see the likes of guards LaVine, Lonzo Ball, and Alex Caruso, do more than enough to limit Graham and Alexander-Walker offensively.

When Caruso was matched up with Alexander-Walker defensively last season, he performed well. Caruso held Alexander-Walker to 2-of-6 shooting from the field and 0-of-3 from beyond the arc. He also got one shot block, one steal, and one additional forced turnover.

And when defending Graham last season, Caruso held the former Charlotte Hornets potent scoring guard to 0-of-4 shooting from the field, two turnovers, and he registered one steal.

Even LaVine performed well last season in a little over two minutes in defending Ingram. When LaVine was matched up with Ingram last season, he held the one-time All-Star forward/wing to 1-of-5 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 from beyond the arc.

It looks like the Bulls are going to match up pretty well with the Pelicans on both ends of the floor. It’s clear that the Bulls have the weapons necessary to outscore a Pelicans team that is short Zion. But holding up on defense will be the goal in this game.

Following the season-opening win over the Pistons on Oct. 20, the Bulls will carry a record of 1-0 into the home opener. Tip-off time between the Bulls and Pelicans at the United Center is set for 7 p.m. CT, with Chicago coming in as a six-point favorite in this game.