Are Chicago Bulls LEGIT? Reaction to comeback win vs. 76ers + Vucevic vs. Joel Embiid battle

Are Chicago Bulls LEGIT? Reaction to comeback win vs. 76ers + Vucevic vs. Joel Embiid battle

Sixers Bulls just an absolutely wild game. Came down to a very simple dynamic to start the game. Chicago got absolutely fried by Tyrese Maxi and Joel Embiid. They had 21 and the rest of the Sixers had 24 playing off of the attention those guys were getting. They gave up 45 points in the first quarter, 75 in the first half. And then in the fourth quarter, the Bulls just completely locked them up. Maxi had eight points in the fourth quarter. Embiid had zero. The rest of the Sixers has had eight as they held them to just 16 points in the fourth quarter. Just 36 points total in the second half. So, a tale of two halves defensively for the Chicago Bulls. In the first quarter, Philly just kind of methodically beat all of Chicago’s coverages in two-man game with Maxi and Embiid. And Embiid was also giving some problems to Vu one-on-one. So, first possession of the game, Embiid just drives at Vousvich. Vu gets his left hand kind of in on Embiid’s right arm. And you know Embiid, he’s one of the best grifters in the league. So he just immediately throws up like a running jump shot from like 18 feet away from the basket. Gets to the foul line. They go right to Max. Twoman game. First possession, Vu is a little too far back. Maxi hits a pullup three. Second possession, Vu steps up higher to the level to take away the pull-up three. Maxi hits Embiid in the pocket. Embiid hits a little jumper in the short roll. Then Vu tries to switch. So again, we’re methodically working through the coverages. A lower drop, then a higher drop, now a switch. On the switch, uh Tyrese Maxi just takes Vu out to the perimeter and hits a pull-up three right in his face. Then Embiid posts up Vousvich and draws a second defender, hits Tyrese Maxi for a kickout three. Then Embiid Embiid beats Vuch on a pick and pop three at the top of the key. And to to make matters worse, they were getting crushed on the margins during that stretch. Philly was getting a bunch of offensive rebounds that were leading to kickout threes. They were turning Chicago over and getting run out layups and dunks. They ended up taking a 21-point lead in the first quarter. Just jumped all over Chicago. They went back and forth for a little while from there until the mid third quarter. And right in that mid- third quarter run, Chicago just massively ramped up their intensity. They forced seven turnovers just in the third quarter. They had 17 transition points just in the third quarter. Remember, this has been the best transition team in the league to start the season. They are averaging 36 points per game just in transition, which leads the NBA. Decent margin, too. They’re about three points over the second best team. Another 45 points just last night in transition in total over the course of the full 48 minutes. They also completely flipped the script on the offensive glass. They became the team that started to get those extra possessions. They had nine offensive rebounds in just the second half. So just a complete and total reversal of just the intensity and all the stuff in the margins that they were struggling with at the beginning of the game. They finally started to have a little bit of success guarding the Embiid Maxi twoman game. They settled on a coverage that they liked, which was basically just bring Vuvich all the way up to the level to get the ball out of Tyrese Maxis’s hands and then they were coming early in help like an early tag and really packing the paint. They prayed on one of the weak weaknesses from Tyrese Maxi and Joel Embiid, which is they can be a bit shoot first, which isn’t the right read when the team’s guarding the action threeon two. The read there is to get the ball to the other side of the floor, right? Like on the first possession during that run that started the in the middle of the third quarter. They come up to the level, Maxi splits the screen and Josh Giddy’s just sitting there waiting as that third defender and help. And instead of making the kick out, Maxi just tries to shoot through Giddy at the rim and he smokes the layup. Very next possession, Joel Embiid slips out at of the at the level coverage. Maxi hits him in the pocket. Instead of making the read, he just runs over Trey Jones and commits an offensive foul. Now, Maxi still had a lot to say. He’s just been unbelievable to start the year. Kept getting downhill on ball screens and hitting little floaters and hitting shots. But in the fourth quarter, the Bulls really started to swarm him when he was getting downhill in those ball screens. And Tyrie started forcing the issue a little bit, which has been unusual for him. He had a season low five assists in last night’s game. And then he finally started to miss some shots as they started to swarm him, especially towards the end of the game. He started settling for some tougher step back jump shots, and he was missing them. Several Bulls got key one-on-one stops against Maxi late where they were gapping, forcing him into those pull-ups and he was missing them. And they were tougher shots that he was missing down the stretch. It was a little bit of them getting gassed, which we’ll talk about in a minute, and a little bit of the shot difficulty kind of increasing as the game went along. And Nicole Vousvich, who had struggled mightily against Embiid early in the game, got five oneon-one stops against Joel Embiid just in the second half of the fourth quarter. Just in that final minute, final stretch of minutes there at the end of the game. Five one-on-one stops against Embiid. He did something that is usually a death sentence with Embiid. He was very aggressive with ball pressure. He was reaching in and jabbing at the ball. as we know that that usually ends in Joel Embiid going to the foul line, right? Like he catches you with your hand in the cookie jar and he just does those little riproughs and and gathers where he can get fouls, right? But to Vucha’s credit, he was surgical with it. He was jabbing with reaches but quickly getting his hands out before Embiid could do anything about it. And it flustered him. It disrupted his rhythm. He poked the ball away from him a couple of times. one on like a step through where he’s actually going up to take a shot and right when he brought the ball up into the pocket, Fuchs just came down and slapped it out of his hands, he poked it away from him from behind on a possession where he kind of reached around uh from the opposite side. He just dominated that matchup late in the game and Embiid was missing his jumper as he was just kind of getting flustered. And then on the other end of the floor, just really highle play from Vousvich and from Josh Giddy. Like Vu did a bunch of damage around the rim. killed the Sixers in the second half rolling out of ball screens and getting offensive rebounds as he would get like inside position on the guard or maybe the uh just rolling hard on a harder drive and just getting an offensive rebound. He had a big lefty hook in the fourth quarter over his right shoulder. Josh Giddy was getting his kind of classic big guard drives for floaters and layups. And then to win the game, a very interesting kind of floor setup for Chicago. Instead of going to that twoman game using Vu as the screener, they end up tucking Vu in the right corner. They’re down by one. It’s 111 to 110. And they si they situate Vu in the right corner, which basically forces Embiid to make a decision, right? Like if he’s going to help at the basket as a rim protector, you’re going to concede a kick out three to Vu. And so the action they end up running is they run a ghost screen. So it’s Josh Giddy on the left wing. They have Kevin Herder come up who’s being guarded by VJ Edgecomb and it works to perfection. Kevin Herder slips out. VJ Edgecomb doesn’t want to switch. He stays glued up to Kevin Herder which causes Kelly Ubé who’s guarding Josh Giddy to open his stance just a little too much to Josh Giddy’s left hand and Josh just hits that gap. hits that gap as the natural kind of ghost screen opening that happens as that switch doesn’t occur and Kelly opens up his stance, drives left and steps over to help. Embiid got some good pressure on the pass, but Giddy made a really nice like jumping out of bounds like lefty hook pass to Vousvich in the corner. He nails the corner three. He’s been torching teams in spot up situations to start this year. He nails the corner three. That puts Chicago up by two. Quinton Grimes actually got a decent look to win the game coming off of a pin down at the top of the key, but he ended up missing. Now, the Bulls are six- one and in sole possession of the top seed in the Eastern Conference as they come back to win that game. This is very much a margin team to be clear. Like, they’re 14th in half court offense. That’s average. They’re eighth in half court defense. That’s solid. They’re not six-1 because they’re dominating in half court execution. They dominate in the margins and they’ve been good in clutch situations to end uh to end games. They dominate the transition game. They have a 10point perame margin on average every single night in transition points. They get 36. Their opponents get 26. It’s like starting 100 on the scoreboard just in transition points. They’re a good rebounding team. They do a good job of generating open three-point looks. Like they’re shooting over 40% from three to start the season and that’s going to be hard to maintain. But you know me, I I hate when people just attribute that sort of thing to variance. Like variance plays a role, but it’s it’s further down the list than some of the other things that determine shot result. And let’s give them some credit for running quality offense. The Bulls generate 18 unguarded catch and shoot threes per game, which is the sixth most in the entire NBA. They move the ball well and they get good shots. And this is where we need to talk about Josh Giddy and Nicool Vousvich. The two of them are just a really difficult duo to guard and they’re getting great shots out of ball screens and out of post ups. Josh Giddy continued his absurd start to the season with 29 points, 15 rebounds, and 12 assists last night. He’s up to 2310 and N on the season for his averages on 50% from the field, 42% from three, 75% from the line. That’s 59% in true shooting. And then Vuch is torching teams and ball screens and playmaking out of the post and spacing the floor with his shooting. He’s averaging 19 points, 12 rebounds, and four assists to start the year. 69% true shooting, 48% from three on 4.4 three-point attempts per game. Doing a ton of damage on spot-ups and especially in transition, trailing the play. The spot-up situations kind of like what you saw in that final possession is a great example. And then in the post, he’s run 30 post ups to start the year and he’s been getting a 117 offensive rating on his post ups, including passes. Very much looking like a guy who’s in a contract year that wants to get paid one more time. He’s hooping his ass off. He is 35 years old, so I’m sure that will play a role when those contract negotiations come into the equation. But he’s playing some great basketball to start this year. And you know, the Bulls are just getting a lot of their success out of playing at an insane pace in transition, some really high three high level three-point shooting and clutch play, right? That transition piece, it just requires so much effort on defense and running the floor that when they look flat, like in that first half last night or in the second game against the Knicks as another example, it can come apart for them because they’re not an elite half court team, at least to start this season, right? But when they are playing at a high intensity, it’s really hard to keep up with them and how fast they run up and down the floor. But the reality is, as we know, teams will start to scout that they’ll be prepared for that transition attack. The three-point shooting will come down a bit. That will put a heavier strain on their half court units on both ends of the floor. And that’s when we’ll get a better feel for just how good this Bulls team. And by the way, over on Hard Rock Bet, the Bulls are currently plus 3,000 to win the East. That is the 10th best line in the conference. I thought that was super interesting. I don’t think they’re going to finish the year as the one seed or anything like that, but 10th best odds is an interesting value bet. And again, all of our lines are provided by Hard Rock Bet. Now, on the Sixers front, I was honestly super impressed by them in the first half. I thought Embiid and Maxi just tried to do too much down the stretch and they kind of gassed themselves out. like a basic kind of balance to explain this to you guys. Those guys took 26 shots in the second half and the rest of the team took only 19. In the first half there was better balance. Those two guys took 21 shots and the rest of the team took 28 shots. And I thought especially down the stretch they just kind of herobal and you know they were both cold on their jumpers and no one else was in any kind of rhythm. Again, Quinton Grimes gets that wide open look late, but that was like the only shot attempt he got down the stretch of that game. I also just thought they looked exhausted. They weren’t getting the lift they needed on those jump shots. And that’s something that can happen when there’s not a lot of variety and you’re just playing a lot of that one-on-one. It’s 75 points in the first half and just 36 points in the second half. I think that was just like a weird kind of like step back for them offensively in terms of their ball movement and like their drive and kick attack compared to what they were doing earlier in the season.

Jason reacts to the Chicago Bulls’ comeback win over the Philadelphia 76ers, analyzes the way Josh Giddey and the Bulls are playing so far this NBA season, and how Nikola Vucevic got the better of Joel Embiid.

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