Bulls season over, fittingly after another clutch loss
play-in tournament was fun, but Bulls lose to Miami and are not making the playoffs
Man am I thankful for the play-in tournament. Gave us two fun Bulls games after 82 torture sessions.
The actual aesthetics of this game weren’t that fun, ultimately a very not-2023 final score of 102-91 with the Miami Heat victorious even though they shot 10/30 from three and a mere 41% overall.
But the Bulls were worse from distance, something they have been all season, going 8 for 28 from three.
There were a lot of atypical contributions in this game. For Miami, they got one role player to step up and it was enough for the whole non-Butler team, as Max Strus went 7-12 from three to finish with an insane 31 points. He had the team’s first 12 in this game as though the Bulls didn’t fall quite as far behind as they did in Toronto, they were down double digits early yet again.
After that, the Bulls kept it close, then tied it up midway through the third, then even had a 6 point lead early in the fourth. The NBA-defined “clutch” time is at 5 minutes remaining, and the game was tied.
But the regular season trends played out here. The Heat are great in the clutch, the Bulls are crud. And that’s how it turned out in this single-elimination game. The Bulls did make a tactical decision too, to switch back to Patrick Beverley to close after Coby White hit several second-half threes and was the Bulls 2nd best scoring option in this game.
But White shouldn’t have to be. Zach LaVine was terrible in these final minutes and had a really poor game overall, finishing with 15 points on 6/21 shooting. Just as I wouldn’t say his epic performance against Toronto was a ‘signature’, I won’t say it about this game either. He is what he is.
This was an ugly, slow, defensive-focused game, so nobody was really going to look great. But DeMar DeRozan came close with his 26 points including several 4th quarter and-ones. Alex Caruso was punishing the Heat for leaving him alone and shot 8 three pointers, making half. Andre Drummond, who I said was too unserious to be in a postseason game, had a huge 2nd half stint where he pounded Miami at their weakness in defending the offensive glass.
That the game was close even after so much Bulls offensive ineptitude is a testament to the Heat not being very good either. Bam Adebayo missed like 8 four-foot shots, Butler missed several bunnies as well. It was almost like their version of the Raptors missing all those free throws last game, just inexplicable ineptitude that kept the Bulls in the game. But unlike that Raptors win the clutch performance went the other way this time.
So anyway, season over. The play-in was fun, and probably did provide some useful information about certain players, but ultimately wasn’t going to determine the success or failure of the season nor the team’s overall direction.
We now have months ahead of us to discuss…all that.
1. I could be surprised, but I don't think there's a good trade out there for DeMar. Nobody's floated anything that I would do if I were another team... it mostly seems to reek of wishful thinking by Bulls fans.
2. If there's an option to trade Lavine for either a Mitchell/Murray/Gobert kind of haul or Trae, I probably pull the trigger on it. I don't think that's in the cards either.
3. I'm not bringing Vuc back for any more than $1M over the MLE, and for no more than a 3 year deal with the last year NG. I'd be active in trying to S&T him for a guy like Batum, RoCo, Kyle Anderson, Taurean Prince... basically a guy with actual 4 size but some game. Then I'd use exceptions to backfill the center position. I'd kick the tires on Porzingis if the Wizards don't want to pay him but want to pretend Vuc is comparable. He's an injury risk, but he's been solid these last two years. If he'd re-sign for Vuc's current salary, I'd feel good about it. Not at the $30M he's making now. I think that's unlikely, but kind of a wild card I'd investigate.
4. My asking price for Caruso is probably like a 1st and a decent 2nd. This is a really good draft and there are several guys I'm targeting in the late first or early second that I'm confident about. This would be a great year to buy a pick or two.
5. The biggest single problem going forward is that we owe $40M in cap space to a guy who will likely never play again. I'd try to get him taken off the cap with the career ending injury exception. The Bulls don't seem to be signaling that, and if they don't, I'd hope they at least get a DPE, which is another $10M player to add.
6.A The second biggest problem with the team is that we've got this weird, inverted roster that revolves around Vuc. Good offense/Bad defense center + "complementing" Bad offense/Good defense guards is a losing recipe. Unless Vuc is back at a really big discount, I'd just start throwing a bunch of guys at the problem for cheap (Landale, Reid, Hartenstein, Gafford, Biyombo, Plumlee, Bamba, Goga, etc).
6.B. And then go for guys who can shoot elsewhere. Retain Coby, and hopefully bring in a couple guys on top that can shoot. Good teams don't just have one or two guys, they've got a bunch. The Bulls need to prioritize shooting.
These two games gave the complete Zach Lavine Experience: some amazing clutch shots, many idiotic shots, flashes of incredible athleticism, momentary glimpses of good defense, a lot of mediocre-to-poor defense, some bad turnovers, and a lot of low basketball IQ.