Bulls make their own luck (ok, receive some luck too) in win over Grizzlies

your best players make threes, their best players sit on the bench

Not much additional to say about the Grizzlies game, as it wasn’t that much different than the first three games:

the Bulls consistency has been volatility

For one thing, it was another game where they caught a team resting players against them. Not only was Morant out for the whole game, but Memphis held Jaren Jackson and Marcus Smart at 25 minutes each, being +15 in Jackson’s minutes and +14 in Smart’s (somehow, as he went 0/11 from the field and missed 8 threes).

But as it was a Bulls victory, it followed the formula:

• Threes went in - 25/53 (47.2%)

• Low Turnovers - 7.7% of possessions

As we’ve seen from pretty much every other team in the league for the past few years while the Bulls have been slow to catch up: the three-pointer is a great equalizer. I thought the team played particularly poorly in much of this game, losing a lot of rebounds and loose balls (it was their third game in four nights, granted). Then some of the shot selection went awry as they found themselves down big.

But to their credit they also generated a lot of open looks, and made enough to hang around. In just short stints of time, Lonzo Ball really makes a difference as while not really able to put that much pressure on the defense, he can do just enough individually to then perform his unique ability to deliver in-pocket passes to shooters.

From indie beat writer Drew Stevens:

At 42.4% on 36 attempts, the Bulls are taking — and making — the most catch-and-shoot threes per game so far this season.

White, 37.9% on 7.3 attempts
Vučević, 52.4% on 5.3 attempts
Ball, 36.4% on 3.7 attempts
Smith, 57.1% on 3.5 attempts
LaVine, 69.2% on 3.3 attempts

Some of this is early-flukey. Jalen Smith did hit over 40% of his threes last year but that was a huge jump…he is pretty young though so maybe it’s real, at least more real than his 0/9 the entire preseason. And do we have to talk about Vuc’s hot start? There is no ‘we’, I don’t have to talk about anything I don’t want to, so I won’t!

Behind these treys¹ the Bulls - after only 30 points at midway through the second quarter - scored 90 points in basically a half’s length of time to go from a game-worst 20 point deficit to an 8 point lead in the fourth.

During that time, it was a combination of the Grizzlies own offense falling apart (nobody believes - despite some good defensive moments from their young wings - that they have some really good “2nd half defense”) and Zach LaVine hitting some highly difficult looks. If those don’t drop and Marcus Smart hits like a basket or two, it’s a much different story from this game.

Worth mentioning another part of this win also held consistent with the first three games: LaVine and Vuc played a lot and took a lot of shots. Matas Buzelis played 3 minutes.

1. per old friend Jason (who shouldn’t Tweet!)