"Every time I watch the Bulls recently, I end up frustrated and almost on the brink of cancelling my NBA League Pass.
I really don’t like low IQ play (Zach), or selfish, low effort chuckers (Thad), but my main frustration is with the in-game and pre-game coaching. The reason why is fairly straightforward—Zach will not magically get much smarter with the ball, which means 2 out 3 games, ISO Zach will flounder in the 4th quarter as the Bulls currently play.
Thad doesn’t want to be there, that much is obvious, because he made his money, and now wants to go play for somebody that matters. Boylen, no matter what he does, is unlikely to make him play harder or smarter, apart from start giving DNPs for poor effort and mindless chucking.
Same goes for Coby—he is every bit as guilty as Zach for breaking the offensive flow, and I say that as somebody who almost detests what the Bulls ran the first 25 or so games on O. But, it appears that the FO has parachuted down orders that the kid has to play and has freedom to chuck as much as he wants. Right now, he’s either insanely hot, or ice cold. When he’s ice cold, he shouldn’t see the floor for more than 15 min game and should be on a leash… but he’s not, and I think this is out of Boylen’s hands so I’m not going to give him grief over it.
So what will I give him grief for?
A lot of things actually. To me, Boylen is the anti-Thibs in terms of preparing for games. Either that, or he really sucks at making the players remember what he told them the morning of.
Thibs was always over-prepared and the Rose/Thibs Bulls were too. They knew tendencies, it was very rare for them to do stupid stuff on D, and Thibs designed an offense around what the FO gave him. Rose drove and got his mid-range, Lu got his baseline jumpers, Carlos pick and popped, Jo and Taj got to play to their strengths, and the myriad of nobodys manning the PG looked like legit NBA players.
The current Bulls to me look grossly unprepared in terms of knowing whom they are defending. Boylen has introduced a trapping D. I have a problem that they are doing it all game, versus select times in the 4th, like the Heat used to, but that’s another topic.
What concerns me is that the Bulls play individual D, and team D, as though they have never read a scouting report in their lives.
Several examples:
1.) OKC game: we’ve blitzed the ball handler all year, but for some inexplicable reason, we decided to switch all 4th quarter on Chris Paul who was red hot from 3. If you’ve watched any Chris Paul over the last 6-7 years, he loves pulling up against bigs that switch onto him. That’s his go-to move. He’s old now and doesn’t have it in him to drive. But, the Bulls gave him space to launch half-a-dozen 3s on switches. The moment he hit a couple of them, Boylen should have told WCJ to get up on him and make him drive right, where only the strong-side 3 is left as an easy pass. CP was going to jack up a contested mid-range shot anyways, if history is any indication. Thibs would have known that. The Bulls didn’t and it cost them the game.
2.) Warriors game: Smart teams have been going to a very specific solution in late games against the Bulls blitzing D—they have the big setting the screen slip and you have a 4 on 3. The absolute key here is to know with some certainty what the roll big likes to do. Against the Dubs, Green is not a good finisher at the rim or a shooter from mid-range. He’s a terrific passer. Here’s what Boylen should have told the D with 3 minutes left in the game. When Green gets the ball, help should rotate to the low block and stay there and make him make a layup over the D. Instead, we rotated high, which led to a couple of excellent passes and open dunks in a late, tight game. Inexcusably bad coaching on that end. Even if you told them to do so pre-game, you have to remind them when it matters. Same thing on O. Kerr knew that the last play coming was a WCJ screen for Zach and put his most nimble and best defending big on WCJ. In the timeout, it should have gone like this: whomever is being guarded by Green, go sit in the weak-side corner. The other big is to set the screen. This is easy stuff. This is not rocket science.
3.) Last night against the Jazz: Bogdan is a really big dude at 6’8 or taller and Snyder switched him to a PF in the fourth quarter where he abused the Bulls guards for 10 points. In the meanwhile Lauri / Thad were guarding some 6’6 guy in the corner. No competent coach should allow for a 6’8 guy to post up 5 times and get 10 points in the 4th without making an adjustment. Zach, Sato and Coby would have been perfectly fine guarding a spacer in the corner. After that went down 2 times, Boylen should have recognized what Snyder was doing and switched our PF on BB. On the other hand, we had Gobert slipping the screens and getting several dunks and fouls late in the game. Remember in the previous example that Green likes passing. Gobert, on the other hand, is too big and clumsy and can’t pass. The moment he set a high screen, Lauri and Dunn should have moved up to have a foot in paint up high, not rotating down low AFTER Rudy had caught the ball and had two dribbles because Kris is not going to block him at the rim. If you make him think, his only options would have been to drive in a packed paint, or to throw a pass to the strong-side corner 3 and hope it doesn’t get picked off. This is easy stuff and knowing who you’re playing. And again, it’s Jimbo’s job to remind the players, if they are so absent-minded as to have forgotten if he had told them pre-game. My guess is the doesn't even know he F'd up in real time.
In many of these close games, two or three stupid defensive plays make the difference between a W and a L. And frankly, I do not remember Jimbo making a single adjustment where I went—this makes sense in the context of whom we are playing that night. Like zilch. Nada.
I won’t even get into our early season offense in detail, but I’ll just mention that the ‘motion system’ is just a single set that most junior teams in Europe run because it’s just as easy to remember as P&R. That’s not a system, that’s not the Princeton, or the triple post, or triangle or whatever other read-and-react offenses there have been through time -- that was a single set being unsuccessfully run over and over, whether it made sense to the personnel we had on the floor or not.
Anyhow, if the Bulls had an average coach—I think they would have been hovering near .5. If they had a good coach in terms of game management, I think they may have been above 0.5. With the same players and with Lauri sucking for a month and Otto missing all that time.
I can honestly say that I do not remember seeing a coach and his staff be so incredibly bad at recognizing what the other team is doing and adjusting mid-game. It’s so blatant at this stage. I don’t think they are idiots and they will probably figure out HOW they messed up when they watch the tape, but in the meanwhile, the Bulls are losing winnable games.
I think, and not necessarily with hindsight, that extending a rookie coach with a team this young was just a poor, poor decision because Boylen’s inexperience is dragging the whole team down. Again, all it takes most games is for him to help them out on 3-4 possessions like Thibs often did and like good coaches do against the Bulls. In a one or two possession game, that’s the difference in winning and losing. Instead, good coaches are coaching circles around Jimbo and he’s like a deer in the headlights.
But, that’s also the optimistic part. If the Bulls ever get anybody who’s even a moderately competent game manager, they’ll start winning, and much more than this board realizes. Contrary to the current prevailing opinion, I think the Bulls have the talent to be a 45-50 win team, if they only start playing a little smarter.
Muutenkin tuollainen kylkivamma on todella paha juuri heittämisen kannalta, kun Laurin heittokin on melko rento ja siinä hyödynnetään koko kroppaa.