“Okay, here’s the plan! You, go warm up the bus. You, send Jeff around the corner for pizza…”
Sucking Wind City! While the Atlanta Hawks’ biggest issue at the moment is getting the headcount right on the travel bus, we’re just about at the point where their hosts tonight, the Chicago Bulls (8:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast, NBATV, CSN Chicago), will look to throw somebody under one.
Last season, just five teams in the Eastern Conference had a winning record, and Chicago’s current mark (36-36) would have had them on pace for the 6th seed. Not so in 2016, with as many as ten East teams at least capable of finishing above .500, and the Wizards and Bulls on the outside looking in.
Hawks GM Wes Wilcox was an assistant coach on LeBron James’ 2004-05 Cavs (42-40), the last East team to sit out the postseason despite amassing more victories than losses. That team had too many questions about its head coach, setting free Paul Silas despite 18 games left and his team still in 5th place despite a post-All-star swoon. This Bulls team seems to have even more questions about its leadership, including its first-year head coach.
It’s not like the Bulls haven’t been down this particular primrose path before. In 1998, the team had vacancies all over the place after the final MJ-led NBA title followed with everyone of significance, including head coach Phil Jackson, abandoning ship.
That summer, Jerry Reinsdorf went to the sleepy college town of Ames, and plucked Iowa State coach Tim Floyd, a 44-year-old with no NBA coaching experience (but one Sweet Sixteen appearance, so there was that), to serve their director of basketball operations, hoping against logic that Phil (and Mike) would have a change of heart and return to the fold once the lockout ended. Yeah, that was never gonna happen. When the season opened in February, Floyd was the coach, running the show for the first of nearly three-and-a-half disastrous seasons, when the Bulls couldn’t even crack 20 wins.
Somebody in Chi-town must really like the Cyclones. Fifty wins, the NBA’s Most Improved Player in Jimmy Butler, and a conference semifinals appearance where the Bulls gave LeBron his strongest resistance along his path back to the NBA Finals, apparently wasn’t good enough for Tom Thibodeau to retain his job in 2015. Entrusted with joint management decisions, executive VP John Paxson and GM Gar Forman figured, why the heck not?
In comes Floyd’s first All-American college player, Fred Hoiberg, now a 42-year-old with one season of NBA assistant coaching experience back in 2006 (but a Sweet Sixteen appearance, so there’s that), as the new head coach. Being hopelessly enamored with the Big 12 is one thing, but would it have pained the Bulls brass to at least go after Lon Kruger?
After blowing a home-and-home set with the Knicks and then getting their doors blown off down in Orlando, all in a span of four days, Chicago (10-16 since Feb. 1) is facing their worst season finish since stumbling out of the pen under Scott Skiles in 2007-08. The Hoi polloi are seeing red. Players are getting restless, too.
“We’re losing to… trash teams.” Taj Gibson tried explaining his feeling “embarrassed” last week after the Knicks’ sweep, certainly not endearing himself to anybody in Gotham or the Magic Kingdom in the process. Well, Taj will be emboldened by the discovery that his Bulls blowing games against teams that are beneath him, in his estimation, is now a thing of the past.
Beginning with an Atlanta (44-30) team that dispatched Detroit with surgical precision (34 assists, four player turnovers, 8 of 9 players scoring in double figures) on Saturday, six of Chicago’s next seven opponents are in playoff contention, and the seventh (Milwaukee) was eliminated last night. Just two of those forthcoming games are at home. After that stretch, they’ll host LeBron’s Cavs, their opening-round opponent even in a rosiest-case scenario. By that point, we’ll know if this is a roster that also deserves to get tossed into Gibson’s round file.
The largest average fan attendance in the NBA fills up the United Center. But Chicago’s diminishing faithful anticipates another fall-flat performance tonight, and the tension is as thick as you’d find at a presidential candidate rally there.
Their All-Star at the wing, Butler, is still laboring through a knee injury sustained back in early February, and is likely to get shut down for exploratory surgery the minute Chicago gets mathematically eliminated. “…at times I feel like I’m hurting this team. That’s the most disappointing part because I’m not the player I was,” noted Butler to the Chicago Sun-Times, in what had to sound a bit like an echo to fans of the Bulls’ starting backcourt.
One good element of Butler’s return to action has been his passing (5.3 APG, 1.0 TO per game in last 8 games). But Jimmy “Pails” (14.3 PPG, 39.2 FG% in last 8 games) in comparison to the Jimmy Buckets (22.4 PPG, 45.8 FG%) that preceded his injury, and his defensive intensity has ebbed as well.
Derrick’s Rose Rule contract expires after next season, while Pau Gasol may be following the injured Joakim Noah out the door in free agency. Gasol (nursing a sprained ankle, but probable for tonight; 8.3 PPG and 39.1 FG% in last 3 games) and Rose (18.4 PPG in March) have been trying to plug the gap in Butler’s production as best they can, but that only shows up on the offensive end of the floor for Chicago.
The Bulls have allowed triple-digit opponent tallies in nine of their past ten games (the exception being the Jazz, who don’t even get down like that) and in 25 of their last 27 games, going back to January 31. Under Hoiberg, they’ve become offensively inefficient (26th in O-Rating, 25th in FG%) and, to the dismay of fans longing for the Thibodeau days, defensively deficient (24th in D-Rating since February 1).
Reinsdorf would relish any fan-favorable news that kicks the soap opera by his White Sox off the front page, so it’s likely GarPax will get gored soon. But Hoiberg’s not in deep dish just yet. End the losing streak tonight against Atlanta, inspire a mad-dash charge for the 8-seed (they’re just 2 games behind Detroit, 2.5 back of Indy), and Hoiberg can make a case out of being a transition guy completing the first season of his five-year, $25 million contract, hamstrung by well over 180 man-games lost due to injuries.
Even if the Bulls’ closing campaign falls short, a new managerial regime might arrive in the upcoming offseason with a lot to work with, including not just one but perhaps two lottery picks. The 2014 mid-season dealing of Luol Deng to Cleveland netted them a top-ten-protected 2016 draft pick via Sacramento, and the Kings are within just 1.5 wins of royally screwing that up. Throw in a full season of off-season recovery from Butler, Rose’s contract year, and growth from youngsters like Bobby Portis, Doug McDermott, and Nikola Mirotic, and the skyscraper’s the limit.
But any half-full perspectives for Hoiberg must begin with a big win, soon. And there’s no time like the present with the Hawks in town. Solving Atlanta involves figuring out the Hawks’ stifling perimeter defense. With Saturday’s victory over the Pistons, Atlanta matched last season’s total of 15 games holding opponents below 25% shooting on three-pointers, with eight games left to spare.
Chicago’s 36.8 3FG% ranks 4th in the NBA, but among this season’s most accurate Bulls-eye marksmen, the top one (E’Twaun Moore) remains out with a strained hammy, the fourth-best was Kirk Hinrich, and the fifth-best is our old friend, and Drake troll victim, Justin Holiday.
The Bulls’ Big Three (Butler, Rose, Gasol) have to look for targets like McDermott (43.2 3FG%; team-high 20 points on 6-for-13 FGs @ ATL on Feb. 26) and Mike Dunleavy (41.8 3FG%) in the corners, where Hawks opponents (37.8 3FG%) have had much better success than they have above-the-arc (NBA-low 32.2 opponent 3FG%). They’ll have a simpler time doing so if Thabo Sefolosha (ankle stiffness, questionable for tonight) isn’t on the floor to frustrate them all.
Gibson will come out to the perimeter to guard Paul Millsap, who was having a whale of a game in Motown (3-for-4 3FGs, 23 points, 4 steals, 4 blocks) before donning a mask of crimson, courtesy of a fourth-quarter head-butt from Errin’ Aron Baynes. But he’s a hockey player, and after nearly a dozen stitches, Millsap is ready to hop back in the fray tonight.
A stitch in time saves nine, so with Sap looking to repeat his team-high nine rebounds and nine points off threes from Saturday, he’ll need his point guards to beat their man off the dribble and make the Bulls pay for leaving Gasol (16 points, 17 rebounds, but 6-for-22 shooting @ ATL on Feb. 26) abandoned around the rim. Only the Lakers, Knicks, and Clippers have been outscored in the paint to a greater degree than Chicago (-3.1 PPG in-the-paint).
Who knew the team would have such an aversion to Jeff Teague’s penchant for anchovies? Teague’s shooting hasn’t been Hot recently (36.2 FG% in his last 8 games), but he has been Ready to dice up teams like the Pistons and Bulls (6.0 team SPG and 11.9 opponent TOs/game, 29th in NBA) who aren’t aggressive with ball handlers.
After 12 assists and zero turnovers in Detroit, Jeff, plus Dennis Schröder (7 assists, 3 TOs @ DET on Saturday) should have little trouble dicing up their defenders like pepperoni tonight, especially if Butler and Tony Snell get preoccupied with chasing around Kyle Korver and Tim Hardaway, Jr.
Al Horford stands to have a productive evening as well, after adding four assists and four blocks to his 18 points (8-for-11 FGs; 2-for-3 3FGs) in a 103-88, nearly wire-to-wire win over the Bulls in Atlanta last month. Consistent with the successful stretch that began with that victory, the Hawks shot just 20.6% on threes in the game and 41.6% overall, but the Bulls had even fewer answers (36.4 FG%, 5-for-20 3FGs).
Horford and Millsap combined for 9 of the Hawks’ 11 blocked shots (compared to Chicago’s two blocks) and matched Chicago’s total of 3 steals as Atlanta built up a 20-11 forced turnover advantage. Hoiberg’s crew needs to find players willing to be more disruptive and force the Hawks to play Butler and Rose in transition. Only the Lakers and Knicks score fewer points off turnovers than Chicago (13.5 PPG, 28th in NBA).
Getting the W tonight over the Bulls would virtually sew up the ninth-consecutive postseason for the Hawks, the longest for the franchise since the St. Louis-to-Atlanta run between 1963 and 1973. They have a tiebreaker over Chicago and a 2-1 edge in games over Washington, who should make it all official with a loss in Golden State tomorrow night. While Chicago resorts to internal finger-pointing meetings, maybe the Hawks can celebrate with a pizza party. Who’s buying?
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
