Official Game Thread: Bulls at Hawks

[NBASupes]

1 minute ago, macdaddy said:

My only point is not in comparison to Trae.  These are bad decisions and lazy passes and it's most games lately.  He still hustles like crazy.  I'm just not thrilled with the idea of him being a full time PG. 

Those are not lazy passes. They are difficult passes while slashing. Nothing is easy about these passes. You will never see Delon Wright attempt these passes. They aren't accurate passes but as I've said, he doesn't have much passing versatility.  

[TheNorthCydeRises]

9 hours ago, NBASupes said:

Murray is clearly a PG. He runs an offense better than Trae who's clearly a PG. Trae being a world class playmaker compared to solid as Murray doesn't mean he can execute all the actions needed from a PG. 

Murray and Trae are obviously PGs. I don't see another position those two can play. I hated the idea of the trade before it happened because of that in general. 

The only thing Murray does better than Trae as the PG, is get the ball out of his hands to keep it moving.  He goes ISO a lot more than Trae.  He's definitely not a better playmaker than Trae.  Murray excels in transition as a PG.  Halfcourt offense is not his game, which is part of the reason why the team struggles when he's running the point.  If he's not getting his own shot, he's normally not making a lot of plays for other people

The ball does stick in Trae's hands a lot, but it also plays to his strengths as a playmaker by getting people wide open shots.

Trae has arguably made Murray's life easier as a scorer, because the top defender on the team is focused on stopping Trae, while Murray gets to go one on one against a lesser defender, with no double teams coming at him.  If teams focused on stopping Murray, he'd have to make major adjustments to his current game.

Murray is the prototype combo guard.  A guy who loves to score the basketball, but can also make the correct pass.

He and Trae can definitely co-exist together.  They just need better frontcourt players to play with, and they both need to get tougher on the defensive side of the basketball.

 

I wish Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars would both sit down with Trae and DJ, and show them clips of how they used to co-exist with one another on the court.  This is the obvious blueprint for them to be successful with each other.

 

 

 

The problem though . . . is that our current coach does NOT place a higher emphasis on defense than he does offense.  He does NOT play big front lines, if he doesn't have to.  He would rather play small ball and try to shoot you out the gym.  And we have a front office that believe the same thing.  Otherwise, they would've added more bigs and athletic players to this lineup, instead of shooters.

The way to get better on defense, is to get bigger and more athletic on the front line.  This will somewhat protect Trae and DJ from their defensive shortcomings, while also making the team better.

With Schlenk, we were trying to copy the Golden St model.  With DJ on the team with Trae, we should be trying to copy the Detroit Bad Boys model, with a modern day twist.

Edited February 14 by TheNorthCydeRises

[AHF]

My biggest criticisms for Trae and Murray as passers are:

For Murray, he doesn't do a good job of putting the ball where people want it so bigs have to go down to get the ball, shooters have to adjust to load for their shots, etc.  

For Trae, it is that he gets over ambitious at times and attempts unnecessarily difficult plays.

 

Overall, I have low confidence in Murray's ability to run an offense.  I have not been real impressed with how our offense runs when Trae is off the floor and Murray is playing point.  I feel like the non-Trae minutes are best when the opposing defenses allow us to swing the ball around the floor and in that case guys like Bogi are almost as important as Murray to making the offense work.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

38 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Now i get you can find examples of bad passes for anyone but these are all from one game.  These are basically all his turnovers and the interesting thing is every single one is with Trae off the floor and DJ running the offense.  Which isn't a huge number of minutes.   

I'm not saying the guy can't pass and can't make good passes.  I'm saying he's gotten real sloppy and if this is who he is then I don't want this running the offense full time.  

https://thehighlow.io/video/ids?ids=24e0mo24AiWN24NYHr24WK8y2424qa

 

I love when people expose me to new websites.  I can see the same thing on NBA.com box score video.  But I like this site too.  You can get to the videos and play types you want to see much quicker.