Observations on Game 15: Bulls-Hornets
We're trying something new here and going super-deep on one quarter
The Bulls beat the Hornets 123-110 in a fun game on Friday night. If you haven’t been catching these games in full, then you’ve been missing out. So much has changed about this team from their opening day stinker. They’re legitimately fun to watch now.
My plan was to get through my rewatch of this game this morning, but there was so much good stuff that I could only watch the first quarter before returning to parent duties. So we are going to change things up and take a super deep dive into all of the goodies from those first 12 minutes of action.
Daniel Gafford got the start in place of an injured Wendell Carter Jr., but Thad Young was the role player star off the bench. He was a team-leading plus-19 in only 25 minutes of action.
The Bulls have been facilitating a ton of their offense through Carter, so it was Young that was put into those actions. He’s a good passer, and he was tremendous at the elbows, in short roll, and passing out of the post.
We’ve heard a lot of talk about the Bulls wanting to pass and cut more. So does every other team in the league. The difference is that the Bulls are actually doing it. The ball movement in this game was remarkable. The veterans have been leading the charge.
Oft-maligned guards Zach LaVine and (to a much lesser extent) Coby White are also noticeably improving in their playmaking. This was readily apparent at the end of the game. The Hornets made a little bit of a run, getting a 14-point fourth quarter deficit down to six a couple different times.
In the past, the Bulls would blow these games down the stretch because of abysmal coaching, poor timeout usage, a predictable defense, and an even more predictable offense of giving LaVine the ball and not really running much else besides a high pick-and-roll for him.
All of these things are gone now. The collapse to the Oklahoma City Thunder aside, this team has played much better in fourth quarters. It’s a testament to how much better of a coach Donovan is over Jim Boylen. Rather than having LaVine shoot over entire teams, they’re leveraging his threat to create openings for other players and passing the ball to open shooters.
Onto the defensive side of the ball, I have continued to be impressed by how good Patrick Williams is at understanding sophisticated NBA defenses. This is definitely NOT normal for a 19 year old. He has a natural feel and understanding of where to be.
On the flip side, Gafford got the start in place of Carter, and his defense did not impress me as much. Gafford is much more of what you expect from young players entering the league. He has a ton of talent, but he is still very raw and doesn’t intuit things even close to the level of Williams or Carter. Again, that’s perfectly fine and normal. He still has plenty of time to pick it up. But he has to learn these low man rotations.
Gafford got called for a three second violation on the offensive end right after this play. He has a lot of talent and should get playing time to develop, but he needs to get his feel level up.
One more note on the defensive side of the ball. I criticize LaVine a lot for his poor awareness off ball. I think he is legitimately improving, and if he can even get to average it will make a big difference. Heady play from him here, and his attitude is what I really like. If he can start caring more, it will go a long way.
Here’s an interesting wrinkle from Donovan that I saw the Bulls practicing in the preseason. The Bulls brought light pressure, then dropped into a zone out of the Hornets’ timeout. It screwed up James Borrego’s play, and the Hornets ended up with an airballed forced 3 late in the clock. Shaving off a couple seconds early in that possession mattered, as did catching the Hornets off guard with a surprise zone. Donovan does a lot of these little things that are very smart.
This was more a function of poor defense than anything else, but it was nice seeing Coby White turn the jets on.
Lauri Markkanen had a good game, scoring 23 points on 17 shots in only 30 minutes of play. This was a fun first quarter sequence from him.
That’s all of my random observations from the first quarter of this game. Check out former NBA video coordinator and assistant coach Steve Jones’ video thread if you’re still itching for more.
----
My stories are going to be totally free this year. Click the link above to subscribe (free) if you’d like to be alerted when a new one comes out. You can also follow me for extra tidbits on Twitter.
If you liked this one, please consider donating. All one-off donations through Venmo at Stephen-Noh-1 are appreciated (you may need the last four digits of my phone number, 1483). Read for free, pay whatever you want! No donation is too small.
Excellent first quarter writeup Stephen. I think another Noh-t-worthy action in that second clip is Satoransky starts setting a soft-screen for Valentine in the corner after dumping the ball to him, buying a small but important amount of time for Valentine to get the clean look. All in all, the team seems to be operating with a completely different attitude under Donovan. It looks like a lot of guys are really embracing doing all of the small, fundamental things that come together into huge results. Like you said, other than that collapse to OKC, this team has been genuinely fun to watch, and the scoring is often very balanced (somehow while Lavine is also averaging a career high in points!)
Thanks Stephen. Excellent stuff as usual. It's so much fun to watch the guys play well.