Bulls vs. Hawks roster snapshot and game preview: it's a mid-off!
Bulls vs. Hawks roster snapshot and game preview: it's a mid-off!
and dueling 'trading with Lakers?' teams
Why aren’t the Hawks better than they are? Or at least better than the Bulls?
I had high hopes with this roster improving after hiring Quinn Snyder late last season:
They have been missing Jalen Johnson since Thanksgiving, going 4-10 in those games. He returns tonight. That probably isn’t close to everything wrong. I’m assuming it’s because Trae Young has been poor and the entire team revolves around his offensive ball dominance and defensive deficiencies.
Kind of like a better Zach LaVine? Young always seems to stink against the Bulls, and he may not play tonight but that may not be the worst thing for the Hawks.
Trae is represented by Klutch, like LaVine, and also like Dejounte Murray. So lo and behold, there are now Shamsy rumors that Murray could be on the move to the Lakers instead of LaVine. Being cheaper and a more well-rounded player, I’d expect the asset price for Murray to be higher than LaVine.
Injury Report: As mentioned, Young is questionable.
For the Bulls, Vucevic makes his first appearance on the injury report in a long time, questionable with a hip issue. Adama Sanogo is available and active!
Schedule factor: Same rest for both teams, with Hawks traveling from Atlanta while the Bulls have been at home for a while now.
Betting line: fairly even and fluctuating, Bulls are currently -105 to win, implied final score: CHI 117, ATL 118
Game Time: 7 central. Come back tonight for the OPEN THREAD.
Vuc is OUT with a groin strain
Few points sticking in my head:
1. Shoe companies probably have more to do with anointing players as "all-stars" than anything else, but one thing that makes for an elite player is when the opposition starts strategizing how to stop you and you overcome it anyway. Defenses are collapsing on Coby right now and making Ayo and Caruso and whoever else make shots. It will be interesting to see how he handles this as I don't think it's gonna change anytime soon. I think other teams are gonna keep it up.
2. MikeDC mentioned this before, it's not corny to say you have to have a closer and DeMar closes. We still see other guys making weird extra passes and shit but the last 180 seconds or so DeMar hits 3 FGs that were just clutch as fuck and I don't see a line of guys lining up to take them.
3. Jevon Carter is shooting 31% this month but you could have fooled me. He's like a video game character that has two shots: 3s and floaters, and they both seem great. Zero hesitation.
4. Been said a million times but the wildest thing about the Unzackening is that you watch a guy being defended by Caruso, and then he passes it to someone else and you don't get depressed right away because we actually have more than 1 solid defender on the floor at all times now. Trae, Murray and Bogdanovic mean you're covering every square foot of court from 35 feet to the rim and the Bulls now have several guys on the court at once who can defend it.
5. Shoutout to the Bulls production crüe for giving us several more replays of a dude being hit in the fucking nuts to the point where he needs A WEEK OF REHAB. I don't want to generalize about demographics here but I'm guessing that the team of seismologists monitoring the New Madrid Seismic Zone in southern Illinois detected a small tremor as tens of thousands of men simultaneously shifted uncomfortably in their recliners.