It’s easy to dismiss Saturday night’s 144-115 thrashing by the Chicago Bulls over the Dallas Mavericks in the United Center.
The Mavericks were missing All-Star Luka Dončić and coming off a last-second home loss to the Milwaukee Bucks one night earlier. Dallas head coach Jason Kidd virtually foreshadowed his team’s fate when airing a complaint about its compressed schedule, particularly the Mavericks’ peculiar tip-off times.
While Dončić would have changed the dynamics, don’t dismiss the Bulls’ performance. It was both their best offensive night and most complete showing of the season. A team prone to openly acknowledging inconsistency as its Achilles’ heel couldn’t avoid a letdown without Dončić in the lineup, paving the way for Chicago to impose its will. The Bulls flexed their muscles, threw flashy passes, flushed acrobatic dunks and, for the first time in a while, flashed megawatt smiles as their lead swelled to as large as 33 points. Fun, if only for one night, returned.
The Bulls’ point total marked a season-high and it’s the most during a home regulation game since December 1990. Chicago’s 82 points at halftime set a franchise record for points in the first half. Though a rare hot shooting night helped, the Bulls benefited most from their approach. The lopsided and bloated scoreboard was a byproduct of Chicago’s plodding process finally paying off.
As they continue to find their footing, the Bulls put a boatload of positives on film they should be eager to bottle up and take with them to Atlanta for the second night of a back-to-back against the Hawks.
Defensive engagement
The rout had long been baking. The scoreboard showed the Bulls ahead late in the third quarter 99-72. Start there to understand how the Bulls crafted their most complete effort to date.
A bad pass by Bulls guard Coby White got intercepted by Spencer Dinwiddie and turned into a Mavs fast break. The Bulls have trailed in games and failed to run back on defense — not on this night, though. All five Bulls busted back. Zach LaVine backpedaled as the point man. Derrick Jones Jr. retreated down the sideline, while White and Ayo Dosunmu sprinted down the middle of the court.
When Jaden Hardy attempted a layup, White and Dosunmu both tried to block it. Dosunmu got there first. Frank Ntilikina scooped the ricochet for Dallas and tried to score, but Nikola Vučević had arrived to reject him, too. The sequence’s energy spilled over onto the offensive end, where LaVine drove and dished to White, who fired an extra pass to Dosunmu for a wing 3-pointer to put the Bulls back ahead by 30.
That effort was present from the start and sustained throughout.
The Bulls amassed an 18-point lead before the game was seven minutes old. It’s during such stretches where Dončić might have kept Dallas from falling into a deeper hole, but the Bulls’ performance over the final 41 minutes proved not even Dallas’ MVP candidate would have saved the Mavs.
In that opening stretch, LaVine, long criticized for his defense, registered two steals. Both led to layups. Alex Caruso, who exited the game in the first half with a tailbone contusion and did not accompany the team to Atlanta, also had a steal that led to a layup in that window. Bulls forward Patrick Williams recorded a crucial block early on. The result? Another Bulls layup.
In a tone-setting 24-6 spurt, the Bulls scored as easy points off their defense as the Mavs managed in total. And it was a team-wide effort. The Bulls hounded the Mavericks into 3-of-11 shooting with three turnovers in the first 6 1/2 minutes. And when Dallas trimmed the deficit to five inside the final minute of the first quarter, the Bulls again used defense to reclaim momentum. The quarter ended with Dosunmu and Goran Dragić double-teaming Mavs forward Christian Wood beyond the 3-point line and forcing another turnover. This time, DeRozan generated foul shots, sinking both to push the Bulls’ lead to 10 entering the second quarter.
Offensive execution
No one puts up 144 points solely behind a strong defense. The Bulls lit up the scoreboard Saturday thanks in large part to principles.
When their defense wasn’t leading to offense, the Bulls put on a beautiful-but-rarely-seen display of discipline, patience and hot-potato passing that the Mavericks couldn’t scramble fast enough to cover. The more the Bulls simplified their attack, the more lethal it became. They played through Vučević early, repeatedly force-feeding him low-post touches. Each time Dallas sent an additional body to assist Dwight Powell, Wood or a smaller defender on a crossmatch, Vučević passed to the open man. That teammate then found another and another until the Bulls found an open shot.
The Bulls dished nine assists on their first 11 made field goals. Five Bulls players registered at least one assist in that window. DeRozan, the team’s leading scorer, had attempted only one shot as the Bulls’ lead ballooned. DeRozan soon joined the party by parading to the free-throw line seven times in the second quarter. With 8:56 remaining before halftime, DeRozan already had taken and made nine foul shots, also his final tally.
On this night, the Bulls didn’t need a hero. Basic ball movement, inside-out passing and some easy ones ignited an offensive explosion.
There’s an ancillary benefit that comes with the Bulls playing as they did offensively. Playing through Vooch keeps the big man happy. Even when he’s not scoring, his kick-out passes that lead to assists and hockey assists are impactful contributions the team is empowering him to make. They ensure he’s engaged and perhaps entice him to continue supplying the less glamorous things. Vučević has started strong this season. Saturday’s 20-point, 8-of-11 shooting, eight-rebound, four-assist effort was as good as he’s been.
The Bulls finished with 33 assists, one off their season-high. All 12 Bulls players who played recorded an assist. Eight had at least two assists, led by White’s seven.
Saturday’s performance epitomized the type of more well-balanced offense the Bulls hoped to have this season — and it showed it’s still not out of the realm of possibilities.
Sizzling shot-making
Anyone who watches the Bulls closely knows their perimeter shooting was a far more significant variable than Dončić’s absence or Dallas’ schedule.
The Bulls enjoyed their best shooting night of the season, reaching season-highs in made 3-pointers (19) and 3-point percentage (55.9). They entered the game averaging only 10 made 3s, tied for the fourth-fewest in the league. The team’s aforementioned ball movement played a big part in generating quality shots. Still, the rate at which the Bulls made them was shocking.
Eight Bulls players made at least one 3, including third-string center and noted post-practice ringer Tony Bradley in the final two minutes. Oddly, White, one of the team’s best perimeter shooters, went 0 of 5 from long distance. Everyone else barely missed from that range.
Williams and Jones each went 4 of 5, a career-high in makes for both. Dosunmu went 3 of 5. Dragić and Vučević each went 2 of 3. LaVine made two 3s and DeRozan made one.
The Bulls might not make 19 3-pointers in another game for the rest of the season. They didn’t top that mark in any game last season and reached that figure a combined five times in the two seasons before that. From a shooting standpoint, Saturday was just Chicago’s night. The Bulls can’t rely on replicating the shot-making they displayed against Dallas.
But the process that propelled the Bulls to their most complete performance yet can certainly be produced again and again.
(Photo of Derrick Jones Jr.: David Banks / USA Today)
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December 11, 2022 at 09:56PM
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