Joakim Noah Night Ruined

I’m sure all the analysts, reporters & journalist are sighing with relief. Everyone expected the Chicago Bulls to faulter after their 4-0 start. The teams they beat weren’t impressive teams & that was a valid concern—a concern even I had. Beating teams, you’re supposed to beat is a good start but you can’t really base a lot off of that. The New York Knicks are an excellent team; they’re coached by a great defensive mind in Tom Thibodeau, have a great start in Julius Randle, a solid point guard in Kemba Walker, a very good player in Evan Fournier & many others. Coming into the game, they had the most threes in a game & most points per game; a very high-octane offense & incredible defense. They rotate extremely well on defense & always blitz the opponents' best players. The Bulls struggled greatly with this “blitz” D & Billy Donovan did not make many adjustments. The offense once again started slow while easy & open shots weren’t falling. Shots were being forced & the ball movement didn’t look as good as the past few games. There was more bad than good & that’s never a good thing

Let’s talk about the good. The Bulls had a pretty bad game yet still kept it in a 10-point range. At around the 90 second mark of the game, the Bulls went on a 12-0 run to bring the game down to 2. Randle choked at the free throw line & the Bulls couldn’t steal the win. The three-headed monster of Lavine, Vooch & DDR played an overall decent game. Three-point shooting was okay but moving forward is something that’ll definitely need work. Outside of that, the honoring of Joakim Noah was special & made any Bulls fan feel great & nostalgic.

There was so much bad that I don’t know where to start. Offense wasn’t good, defense was pretty bad, not much hustling & rebounding was atrocious. The Bulls were finally exposed for their small ball lineups & the injury of Patrick Williams was heartbreaking. The Bulls looked lost on offense & struggled way too much with the blitz D of Coach Thibs. Zach & DeMar kept calling up a screen but weren’t realizing that’s when the blitz would occur. Coach Donovan should have recognized this as well but doesn’t seem like he did since no adjustments were made. The lack of energy and scoring from the bench was an issue as well; when the starters don’t play well, you hope that the bench can come in & give a boost either through energy or scoring—this was not the case. The PnR defense was horrific & defending the three-point line seemed almost impossible— something you can’t do against the best three-point shooting team. The rotations looked all over the place & I get that Coach Donovan was trying to figure out the best lineup but it just looked too messy. Zach & DeMar seemed to force shots & Zo just couldn’t hit from deep.

This was a winnable game but a loss to a good team where you just played bad is something that I can live with. It’s still really early in the season & this team is brand new with a lot of new pieces. They’ll figure it out & keep pushing through. They just have to make sure they’re using the right lineups against the right teams & rebound by committee. Zach also needs to get aggressive a little before the game starts slipping away that way, he can get hot when they need him to. The Bulls take on a top 5 team in the NBA at home against the Utah Jazz led by one of my favorite players, Donovan Mitchell.