Chicago Bulls at Los Angeles Clippers Takeaways: Bobby Portis Edition
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The Chicago Bulls win streak was ended on Saturday night when a strong start couldn’t be sustained and Mo Speights led the Los Angeles Clippers to victory, 102-95.
Things looked good early, but Chicago couldn’t hold on as the clearly tired Clippers surged to take a late lead that they held until the final whistle.
This game had a lot of excitement and showed that the Bulls have what it takes to hang with the best in the league. And there was the Fred Hoiberg ejection at the end of the fourth quarter.
Before the ejection and the loss, there were a lot of great things to celebrate. The Bulls either had the lead or were within striking distance for most of the game. Dwyane Wade had another great night of shooting 3-pointers, starting 4-for-4, finishing 5-for-9. He’s now shooting 37.8 percent from deep on the season, good enough for a career-high by a large margin. He’s also made 17 3s through just 13 games. That number is equal to or greater than the number of 3s he made in four of his last five seasons.
We also saw the Robin Lopez situation play out exactly like we projected it would in our game outlook piece from early on Saturday.
Ultimately, the LA Clippers moved to a league-best 12-2 while Chicago dropped to 8-5, which keeps them in the top five teams in the Eastern Conference. They’ll be in action in Los Angeles again on Sunday against the Lakers so here are some takeaways from Saturday’s loss to help them get ready.
November 19, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Dwyane Wade (3) shoots against the defense of Los Angeles Clippers forward Paul Pierce (34) during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
First Quarter Champs
Chicago has done this thing a couple of times in the past week that really is encouraging. They started out the game at Portland and in Los Angeles on Saturday night with huge first quarter performances.
Against the Trail Blazers, Chicago put up 35 points in the opening 12 minutes, shooting 14-for-30 from the field. A couple days later, the Bulls had a rough night in Utah, but still managed to squeak out a win despite losing both the first and second quarters.
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On Saturday night, the Bulls put 33 on the board during the first quarter, topping 30 for the second time on this road trip. Their shooting was at out-of-this-world levels of wow, good for 68.2 percent as a team for the entire quarter. The frontcourt was the big surprise in the LA outburst, Taj Gibson and Robin Lopez combining to shoot 7-for-7 in that frame.
Consistency and being able to close out games are going to be big things for the Bulls to address as the season rolls on, though they were doing a pretty good job heading into Saturday’s loss. Losing a lead that Chicago had at the end of the first or third quarters would have been a surprise if it hadn’t been a third consecutive road game, playing against the team with the best record in the league.
The team is demonstrating the ability to maintain leads, Saturday night was an exception. If this team is going to be a hot starter that blows the doors off the building before every fan has the chance to find their seats and then just treads water for the next three quarters, at least they’ll be giving themselves the best chance to win.
Nov 15, 2016; Portland, OR, USA; Chicago Bulls forward Taj Gibson (22) and guard Dwyane Wade (3) and forward Jimmy Butler (21) and guard Jerian Grant (2) react after a dunk by Wade against the Portland Trail Blazers during the third quarter at the Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Craig Mitchelldyer-USA TODAY Sports
C.R.E.A.M. – Creating Rebounding Excellence Around Me
The Wu-Tang Clan is great. So is the rebounding of the Bulls.
To touch on the previous slide, Chicago went hard against the Blazers on Tuesday. They put up a ton of first quarter points and shot over 46 percent as a team. The percentage wasn’t as high as their comical first quarter against the Clippers, but they did something important by crashing the glass and stealing six offensive rebounds in that first quarter.
The big offensive boards number probably helped them build that huge lead against Portland – they missed 16 shots, but grabbed the rebound for six, leaving a margin of 10 missed shots that resulted in a Trail Blazers possession.
Against Los Angeles, they only had two offensive rebounds in the first quarter, but they shot more than 68 percent, leaving just seven misses that could turn into potential rebounds. By securing two of those, they had a margin of just five missed shots that turned into Clips possessions.
And it just kept happening throughout the game and it’s been happening all season long. The Bulls have 184 offensive rebounds, but have allowed just 139.
In the fourth quarter on Saturday night, Chicago grabbed five offensive rebounds, but allowed LA to grab five of their own – Mo Speights grabbing two of those. The Bulls were outscored 30-18 in that final quarter. This isn’t everything, but it is a significant season-long trend. Chicago needs to get assists and win the rebounding battle to stay ahead.
They did own the second chance scoring category, but lost the overall rebounding battle when it counted most. One more thing to consider, while it rebounding may have said five offensive rebounds for each team, the Clippers grabbed four more defensive rebounds than the Bulls. That does translate into a deficit which directly impacted the Bulls who relied on second chance scoring to stay in the game down the stretch, like Jerian Grant grabbing his own rebound to step back and knock down a corner 3-point attempt.
C.R.E.A.M. Grab the rebounds, win the boards y’all.
November 19, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers center Marreese Speights (5) controls the ball against Chicago Bulls forward Bobby Portis (5) during the second half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
The Bobby Portis Identity
“Why is Fred Hoiberg leaving Bobby Portis in the game?” A question asked a thousand times, but only answered three or four times. There was a lot of frustration with Hoiberg’s decision and a fair amount of incredulity. The source of the outcry was Marresse Speights. Speights, the same guy who was referenced as grabbing two offensive rebounds on the previous slide, had himself a fourth quarter. One of the two rebounds he grabbed was over Portis. Like, over. He jumped over Portis, who had position and did nothing with it, to tip and then secure the rebound at a pivotal moment in the game.
Speights was left alone to launch clutch 3-bomb after clutch 3-bomb over exactly zero defenders. In addition to those two offensive rebounds, he dropped 11 points on a night when the rest of the Clippers bench basically did Clippers bench things, like not score or generally contribute too much. It was bad. There’s no way around it. As someone who likes Portis and wants him to be a good NBA player, it was hard to watch him be anything but that.
But he got to say in the game for a very long time. It’s simple. Hoiberg believes that Portis is his most versatile defender available to pair with Taj Gibson. He also has some, not much, range which could be witnessed on Saturday night when he knocked down a nice 3-point look.
Nikola Mirotic has done exactly zero to make himself a legitimate option to help on defense in place of Portis. Also, anyone want to even pretend that Mirotic can be counted on every night to show up, knock down shots and seem remotely useful on defense? Didn’t think so.
Robin Lopez, the guy who worked his tail off and had a good night, wasn’t on the floor because Hoiberg didn’t want him there. Hoiberg didn’t want him there because he can’t play perimeter defense. The Clippers figured out this flaw and punished it. Except, they exploited it with Speights while Lopez sat handcuffed to the bench.
There’s a valid argument to be had regarding what this rotation should look like going forward. The general consensus is that Portis and Gibson or Portis and Mirotic shouldn’t be any type of option. We don’t know if Lopez could have dealt with Speights or if Mo would have just shot over him. I’m firmly in the camp that believes it wouldn’t have mattered on the defensive end. Lopez knows his game and isn’t going to venture out too far.
I have a feeling this conversation is far from resolved and we’ll have more to talk about as the season wears on, but for now we can all just hop on social media and type in “#FreeFelicio.”