Whatever this is, it’s ugly
With top guys shelved, Bulls play the B squad and fire a lot of blanks
NEW YORK — It’s not easy trying to figure out what the Bulls are these days. Are they a wounded dog? Are they in full tank mode? Or are they just another bad NBA team trying to grind through the final 12 games of the regular season? Likely all of the above. In any case, their 110- 92 loss to the Knicks on Monday night was yet another painful performance.
First, there was the matter of the starting lineup. It was Summer League all over again, with a little Justin Holiday sprinkled in, as Denzel Valentine, Paul Zipser, Cristiano Felicio and Cameron Payne all started alongside the lone veteran Holiday.
But in case the NBA’s vice president of basketball operations, Kiki Van De Weghe, plans to again target the Bulls for their lineup decisions, the Bulls actually had an excuse this time: Their big three of Kris Dunn ( turf toe), Zach LaVine ( tendinitis, left knee) and Lauri Markkanen ( back) were all sidelined back in Chicago.
Of those three players, the one whom coach Fred Hoiberg seemed the most concerned about was Dunn, who is using a walking boot on his right foot.
“He’s had a little bit of a setback with the toe,” Hoiberg said. “It’s a little more swollen, really sore.
“Zach is feeling better. He had a good conditioning session, got a good lift in. Lauri feels quite a bit better. We’ll re- evaluate it when we get back and make a decision on what we’re going to do.”
As for how all of this might look to the league, Hoiberg wasn’t concerned.
“We understand that these are legitimate things going on,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot of things going on with the three guys we accomplished in [ last year’s] trade — Kris and Lauri and Zach — and hopefully we do get them back on the floor sometime soon. When they’re ready to go, they’re going to be back out there playing again. At the same time, we understand that right now we’ve got to look at some guys in different situations, which we’ve done.”
The Knicks have been doing the same thing, playing the baseball equivalent of September call- ups. And it wasn’t pretty at all Monday. The halftime score was 47- 37 Knicks as the two teams combined to shoot 6- for- 38 from beyond threepoint range. The Bulls finished the night 3- for- 30 from long range, with Holiday, Zipser and Payne combining to go 0- for- 15.
Felicio led the Bulls with 17 points. The big disappointment was Valentine, who, after a 34- point breakout game against the Cavaliers on Saturday, scored just eight.
“We weren’t hitting,” Valentine said. “There’s going to be games where you’re hot and games where you’re not.”
Said Hoiberg: “I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about them throwing this on ESPN Classic any time soon. Tough night. When that ball doesn’t go in the hoop, it’s ugly out there.”
Where it wasn’t necessarily ugly was in the draft department. The loss dropped the Bulls to 24- 46 and officially eliminated them from the playoffs, but it also kept them as the eighth- worst team in the draft lottery, bringing them to within a game- and- a- half of the Nets, who are in the seventh spot.