JJ last night................

[MoonKnight]

That was some of the hardest earned 29 or so points I have ever seen a player earn primarily due to our coaching staff. Did anyone notice how Kirk Hinrich guarded JJ for long periods of time during the game? We only a handful of times tried to get JJ in the post on KH and, when we did, then we had difficulty making an entry pass into the post. This staff either has the inability to recognize mismatches or have failed to teach our players how to execute basic offensive sets to take advantage of mismatches (entry passes, etc.). JJ had to burn enormous amounts of energy to get his points. It should not have been so difficult.

[Swatguy]

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That was some of the hardest earned 29 or so points I have ever seen a player earn primarily due to our coaching staff. Did anyone notice how Kirk Hinrich guarded JJ for long periods of time during the game? We only a handful of times tried to get JJ in the post on KH and, when we did, then we had difficulty making an entry pass into the post. This staff either has the inability to recognize mismatches or have failed to teach our players how to execute basic offensive sets to take advantage of mismatches (entry passes, etc.). JJ had to burn enormous amounts of energy to get his points. It should not have been so difficult.

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You saw Kirk guarding JJ as a result of the ZONE DEFENSE. Had JJ gone to the post, he would have meet up with Ben or/and PJ.

[MoonKnight]

I didn't see the Bulls play much zone but did see KH chasing JJ around on the perimeter where JJ would have to beat KH off the dribble and have the other defenders collapse on him. In fact for most of the game, I saw Bull defenders picking up their man at half court and clearly not playing zone.

[mudderfudder77]

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I didn't see the Bulls play much zone but did see KH chasing JJ around on the perimeter where JJ would have to beat KH off the dribble and have the other defenders collapse on him. In fact for most of the game, I saw Bull defenders picking up their man at half court and clearly not playing zone.

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You're right, the Bulls very rarely play zone, and then usually only if they have an elite big man on the opposing team.

The Bulls strength are their man defenders in the back court with the help defenders in the front court. If JJ had posted up Kirk (which is not as easy as it looks) he would have been met with a double - and right now the Bulls rotations have been damn good. I think the Bulls are up to third in Opponents FG%.

[exodus]

The Bulls are tough on D and Kirk is especially tough. They were keying on JJ and yet he still put up 29 which was a great effort.

Unfortunately he only had 2 guys who were helping him on offense. Everyone else was garbage.

[mudderfudder77]

Agreed. The fact that JJ has little to no help makes what he does even more impressive.

[Diesel]

The Bulls play a junk defense... something like a diamond and 1. They Isolated Hinrich on JJ and they forced everybody else to shoot from outside.

This was especially evident late when we had Zaza and Marvin in the game. Zaza drove the lane, 3 players immediately swarmed him and caused him to commit an offensive foul. Marvin drove the lane the very next offensive set, 3 players immediately swarmed him and cause him to commit an offensive foul. Smoove then drove the lane, committed the offensive foul but got the blocking call instead.

That simple defense caused us problems because it was hard to get the ball to JJ and nobody could give him a good enough pick or set of screens for him to get an open look. The other problem was Wallace and PJ... They kept that middle tight.