Chicago Bulls vs. Milwaukee Bucks Takeaways: Giannis Shows Out, Butler Disappears
The Chicago Bulls hosted the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night, looking to avenge an ugly loss from the night before when the two teams faced off in Wisconsin. That isn’t what happened.
Just one night after looking absolutely flat, the Bulls did nothing to right the ship. In fact, things actually got weirder and worse as Friday wore on – and that was before the game started.
One of the more noteworthy happenings from Thursday night, Milwaukee’s first game on the TNT network since 2002, was the first DNP-CD of Nikola Mirotic’s career. Then, on Friday, Vincent Goodwill of CSNChicago reported that Mirotic missed (or skipped) the team’s walk through. Coach Fred Hoiberg wasn’t forthright with the details, but did make it clear that there was the possibility of a fine for his deposed power forward.
When the game finally got going, it looked like everything picked up right where it was left on Thursday night. Chicago continued to look flat, running bad sets, playing bad defense, and getting next to nothing from their early-season savior, Jimmy Butler. On the other side, the Bucks were ready to roll from the opening tip. Jabari Parker and Giannis Antetokounmpo attacking Butler, Rajon Rondo, Taj Gibson, Doug McDermott and anyone else that made any kind of attempt at slowing them down.
There were a lot of ugly things about a gritty Friday night game against a division rival, so here we go.
Dec 16, 2016; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Bulls center Robin Lopez (8) passes in front of Milwaukee Bucks center John Henson (31) during the first quarter at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports
Failure in the First
Chicago got embarrassed in the first quarter. Well, maybe that isn’t true. I have no idea what it would take for a professional basketball player to feel embarrassed. They looked bad, flat, tired.
There was no transition game. The ball didn’t zip, it stuck.
The first quarter has been getting worse for a while. By the time the Bulls finished their impressive 4-2 Circus Trip, their first quarter plus-minus was over 18. Now, they’re down to a +4.5. One thing to watch for that may be a contributing factor is their 3-point shooting.
Over the course of the season, the first quarter is when they have their highest 3-point field goal percentage, but also take the fewest shots from deep in that same time frame. Much like the chicken and the egg, we need to evaluate what can be inferred.
First, we could infer that the Bulls are an excellent 3-point shooting team in the first quarter. Reasoning could be confidence, rest, defense not picking up on play calls, the only fully-rested extended run of five starters, and so on. It also implies that we assume the success is either independent – they would should with that kind of success regardless of other factors – or it implies that one of the variables, such as fresh legs, presents a significant correlation. This is plausible.
Let’s look at it another way. You could say that some outliers, when noticed, create psychological belief in the shot, leading to more success. Turning an outlier into an actual advantage. That is also possible, and it would skew our data.
Now that I’ve pretended to talk in a scientific manner, I’ll end with this. It could be confidence or it could be fresh legs with more spring when launching shots, but it probably has more to do with the first quarter being the once quarter when they take the fewest attempts from deep, thus a single make weights more heavily because it is being weighed against fewer total attempts. And this is probably at the center of a lot of the issues. They aren’t shooting from deep early, content to connect on one or two attempts in favor of getting up more looks.
On Friday night, it didn’t matter where the Bulls shot from, they were awful. In the first quarter, they shot 22.2 percent, 6-for-27, and converted on just one attempt outside the restricted area. Only one for the entire quarter.
It was bad tonight, it was bad last night and it has been bad for a while. It’s probably going to stay bad so buckle up.
Dec 16, 2016; Chicago, IL, USA; Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) drives the ball defended by Chicago Bulls forward Cristiano Felicio (6) during the second half at the United Center. Milwaukee won 95-69. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports
Giannis and Jabari
A couple things right off. We’re not a Bucks blog and I don’t have enough room on a single page. For what? Antetokounmpo and Parker were fired up for both of these games. It’s night and day watching a couple of young, athletic players who want to be the better team, that want to win.
I am in no way a Chicago White Sox fan, but I can’t help but think of Ken “Hawk” Harrelson and his mantra about The Will to Win.
Dwyane Wade is one of the best to ever do it. Butler has been a legitimate top 15 player in the league for most of the season. They got housed by the young guns of the Bucks.
Going back to the previous slide, the first quarter, those two players combined to shoot 6-for-6. Parker only hit two shots in the quarter, but he was literally bullying Butler in this game. It was awkward to watch. We’ve talked a lot about how this Chicago team is older, slower, and perhaps a bad fit. However, the outstanding play of Butler was helping to mask that. How odd it was to watch the excellent wing get backed down and mowed through for easy layups by a player in just his third NBA season, just the first in which he’s looked anything like the player everyone expected coming out of the draft.
Anteokounmpo is on another level. I need to tell you this: It is okay to enjoy players on another team. We talked about this in our staff Slack chat, today. We didn’t want the Bulls to lose, but it is irresistible to watch the Greek Freak and Parker connecting on passes and in transition, skying for highlight slams and sincere belief.
It’s enough to make me jealous. They have plenty of problems and holes in their team, mostly just the absence of Khris Middleton, so it isn’t a perfect team, but I’m jealous of how it must feel to be Milwaukee fan. Imagine knowing you had your star players, Middleton and Antetokounmpo, locked up long-term and you’re about to extend Parker, too. That grouping has a much, much brighter future than any grouping of three players you can come up with in Chicago.
Dec 15, 2016; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Chicago Bulls forward Cristiano Felicio (6) and Milwaukee Bucks center Greg Monroe (15) battle for a rebound in the fourth quarter at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports
Where From Here?
Things are dark right now. The loss on Friday night is easily one of the worst losses that most of us can remember. Not just this season, but in many years. For me, it probably hasn’t quite felt this way since after the Bulls struggled through a losing series after the first Derrick Rose injury.
We know that Rajon Rondo is a massive liability. He’s bad at basketball, he’s had at least one run-in with the coaching staff, and he seems to try less and less with each new game. His contract is bad and was foolish from the start.
Wade isn’t capable of carrying a team and was a poor signing in my opinion. He’s taking up a ton of cap and probably not adding any wins the rest of the way. However, if he does add wins, it won’t be any wins that are going to be useful.
Butler had his worst game of the season, scoring just seven points, getting in foul trouble early and looking generally the lesser player in his matchup against Parker.
Look at the defense, being picked apart by a merely average Bucks team.
The Bulls' defense is getting picked apart pic.twitter.com/DZLwHRe0fT
— Stephen Noh (@hungarianjordan) December 17, 2016
Also, notice the personnel on the floor. Rondo and Lopez were the starters kept on the floor the longer to start the game. Butler was a necessity because of fouls, but why is Rondo out on the court with Denzel Valentine, McDermott and Bobby Portis? I’m not looking at the numbers, but that just feels like a defense that doesn’t exist.
Let’s jump right into another potential argument from the last paragraph. McDermott is on the court for his offense. Okay. This offense?
McDermott has to pull the trigger on these 3's. pic.twitter.com/clKC9vRtt1
— Stephen Noh (@hungarianjordan) December 17, 2016
McDermott has been a great scorer at moments during his time in the league. It’s been rare. He’s a liability on defense and when his shot isn’t falling, which is often, he’s a negative addition to lineups. That reminds me of another streaky Bull, Nikola Mirotic. Mirotic has now logged two consecutive DNP-CDs. He sat on the bench while Paul Zipser, Cristiano Felicio, Jerian Grant and Isaiah Canaan made their way into the blowout.
Mirotic can still be a useful NBA player, but there is no way that happens in Chicago. He’s been a very poor shooter this season, so I get why he doesn’t play. However, he shouldn’t be back next season so why not keep running him and then flip him before the trade deadline? Honestly, the Bulls are losing Taj Gibson and Mirotic during the offseason unless they have money to blow and even in that scenario, I don’t believe Taj wants to stick with a team that kept him on the bench during his prime years, only to start him at the last moment.
Oh, and Gibson left Friday night’s game injured. It probably isn’t serious, but he could miss some time. That makes it fair to speculate that Mirotic will return to the rotation, though in what capacity is unclear.
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And everything about Chicago’s future is unclear right now. I called for a rebuild on the fly before the season and that is dangerous and problematic, but this team isn’t going to challenge anyone in the playoffs. So if you’re going to linger around the eight or nine spot in the conference with moveable assets, but don’t make any moves, what are you really doing?
What are the Bulls doing? What are they going to do? It was painful loss, but maybe some true growth is going to come out of this.
