Takeaways from Bulls/Hawks

Hey all, people seemed to enjoy my notes after the season opener. I wrote up some more from yesterday's game. There are videos and images that you can see in the substack link (free, no ads), or you can just check out the text that's copy & pasted below. Thanks for reading!

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Back in 2014, Steve Kerr used the slogan “strength in numbers” to highlight the importance of his role players during the team’s dynastic run.

That, of course, was ********. Those Warriors won because of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green much more so than Marreese Speights, David Lee, and Festus Ezeli.

The Bulls are a team that actually does depends on strength in numbers. Ayo Dosunmu has stolen liberated Kerr’s slogan in order to describe a win where all eight players who played double-digit minutes scored double-digits points.

This was a fun one that went down to the wire. Here’s another nuggets-style notebook dump on what I saw.

Player takeaways

• Matas Buzelis had the new Bulls dunk of the year. If you’re going to watch one highlight, watch this one.
• A good Giddey game — he had 18 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists. He had another crazy spin move for a floater that somehow found the net, chucked it up at the first sign of contact again for free throws, had a sky hook layup finish (???) over Onyeka Okongwu, and got an easy gimme off a beautiful Billy Donovan in-game adjustment.
• Giddey continues to be very solid on his wide open 3’s, hitting 42 percent of them. He hit a lightly contested one that might have been the biggest shot of the night, putting the Bulls up six with a minute to go.
• Giddey’s defense was better in this one too. He did get targeted on switches and gave up two easy baskets early to Trae Young and Kristaps Porzingis, but he held his own on his own matchup of the night. Friend and countryman Dyson Daniels was trying to attack him repeatedly but couldn’t get by.
• Is Vooch ever going to miss a hook/floater? He’s shooting 79 percent on shots from 4-14 feet, which is traditionally considered a dead zone of the floor. He’s always been good from there, but this year is ridiculous. Another game where Vooch was the best guy on the floor, getting 17, 17, and 9.
• In previous years, random people would send me poorly photoshopped images of Ayo Dosunmu and clamps (perhaps made by Bulls meme legend Ross Pins?) or Ayo featured as Trae Young’s father every time the Bulls played the Hawks. Shame on you all — I received zero this year. Ayo has always killed Trae, and this game was no different. Trae went scoreless against Ayo, shooting 0-of-4 when guarded directly by him per matchup data.

• On the other end of the floor, Ayo continued to be a blur. He blew by a good defender in Zaccharie Risacher and two bad ones in Trae Young and Luke Kennard to get some easy layups. He also nailed four threes. Ayo Dos Tres Cuatro.
• Welcome to the season, Isaac Okoro! It’s been a rough opening two games, and he started this one off poorly too with a missed layup and a turnover on the team’s first two possessions. Seeing the ball go in did wonders for his confidence. He went 4-of-7 the rest of the way, getting his first field goal, 3, and points of the year.
• Tre Jones, solid. Write it in sharpie after every game.

Team takeaways

• How are the Bulls doing this offensively? I’m not totally sure. At its core, basketball is a game of advantage generation. The Bulls don’t do it the traditional way, by having guys who can break defenders down 1-on-1. Instead, they do it by not really having any ball-stoppers. They screen for each other, make the right pass, and keep the ball moving. This play illustrated that well.
• From an X’s and O’s standpoint, the Bulls aren’t doing anything particularly crazy. They run a lot, screen a lot away from the ball, and have good improvisation. Almost every team in the league is trying to incorporate some of those ideas. The Bulls have better buy in, execution, and personnel to play that style. It’s the same way that they play defense, as I highlighted in my last entry. Their margin for error is close to zero. They don’t make mistakes and don’t beat themselves.
• There is definitely some shooting luck involved in this 3-0 streak (SB Nation’s Ricky O’Donnell hit on a lot of it today). That shouldn’t discount that they’ve beaten three pretty good teams so far, and they’ve done it without Coby White (and to a much lesser extent, Zach Collins).
• The Bulls and Sixers are the only undefeated teams left in the East. Just like all of us paid experts said would happen, right?