bad team wins close game, is this an identity? (butterfly meme)
a series of flukes is not a "winning formula"
I said it yesterday, and it’s only worsened after the Bulls earned another improbable victory (they all are) to go to 3-2 on this young and hopeless season: we have to shut down the Bulls Takes Industrial Complex until we figure out what’s going on.
It’s extended beyond hype-men to the reasonable, as the heretofore sensible Will Gottlieb at Chuggo is already throwing out all his priors and giving in to the seduction of Billy-ball:
The Chicago Bulls are not who I thought they were…it’s clear now: the Bulls have carved out a fresh identity that actually fits this roster.
The Bulls lead the league in pace, logging more possessions per 48 minutes than anyone else. They’ve clawed back from 20-point deficits in back-to-back games by turning up the tempo and outgunning playoff-caliber teams.
Gottlieb goes on to assert that while the fast-paced Bulls offense is not actually good (and that’s charitable: they’re actually 4th-worst in basketball), it’s their “surprising” defense winning games, by being good overall (7th) and more noticeably better as the game goes on.
Yes, this is certainly surprising! This Bulls defense has personnel suggesting they’ll be one of the worst in the league1. That didn’t change, and still shows up a lot…just in first halves.
Here’s where it gets goofy for Gottlieb: instead of taking these incongruent results as mere early season fluctuations, he instead takes it as causal evidence of a formula that “seems sustainable”.
It is merely theoretical that the Bulls running on offense will wear down teams over the course of games. I wouldn’t make any similar declarations until, oh I don’t know, like 35 games? Certainly not 5.
Unlike me, Will talks to the principals involved, so it makes sense that the vibes inside the building would be positive. But I think nearly all subsets of Bulls fans2 had something negative to take from Wednesday’s win:
patrons - horribly played game: slowest of the season, and at one point between both teams there were 24 missed shots in a row.
smarmy-AK haters3: “home court” preserved, Vuc double-double
tank-humpers: a victory4
LaVine truthers: Zach hurt his shoulder
“youth movement” believers: Matas Buzelis replaced from the very back half of the rotation by Torrey Craig.
This site will not be flustered: there is still hope of a lot to cheer for in the coming weeks of games. The team will be bad and we will be right.
Gottlieb’s correct in one aspect, that both Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams have provided individual defensive heroics the past two victories and look to be permanent options to thwart key matchups late. Though there’s even some complication there, as neither are what you’d call “solidified” as starters.
outside of the goobers, though we love them don’t we folks
::raises hand:: it me, and I’m also smarmy!
Wizards have 2 wins, Nets have 2 wins, this happens
It says a lot about collective expectations that a 3-2 start is so jarring. I would like to be wrong about the long-term prospects of this team and would be happily wrong if I thought the individual defensive parts of this team did not amount to a mesh sieve.
But, as it stands the Bulls are currently 7th in defensive rating and, as the article cites, opponents are shooting 29% from 3 against them. If you think that's a consequence of pace (e.g. other teams' legs are weak, and our legs are Forrest Gump legs metaphorically breaking through material limitations), well, that's certainly a take. And it sounds like something Jim Boylen might mutter to himself in a spiritual trance after too much blended whiskey and shrimp cocktail that someone else paid for.
But, also: fuck it: "We don't run, we're done." - Billy D.
I'd agree there will be regression to the norm for this team in a few ways - they will shoot themselves out of more games and should have shot themselves out of this game if Orlando didn't give it away; their defense will suffer as teams get better targeting Giddey and Lavine; the Bulls pace will actually be counter productive and injury a bunch of guys who aren't sturdy enough to play this pace long term(Ball, Lavine, Williams).
In good news, let's please give Ayp the game ball. The stat sheet might not show it but he basically single handedly brought the Bulls back to life, and guarded Orlando well during those brutal no offense bench lineups when Orlando should have ate the Bulls for dinner.