Preseason ends on impressive note
Markkanen, LaVine help Bulls stage huge 4th-quarter rally Friday
For all the caveats about the Bulls having nine months off from competitive basketball, learning a new system under a new coach with a condensed training camp and shortened preseason, Zach LaVine sure looks ready to start the season.
“Y’all know me. I stay ready,” LaVine said Friday after a 105-103 comeback win against the Thunder in Oklahoma City. “It’s just basketball. I can’t speak for everybody else. I’m always ready to go.”
LaVine was well out of the game by the time his friend Simi Shittu, whoplays for theGLeague Windy City Bulls, sparked a fourth-quarter comeback from a 19-point deficit, but LaVine is beginning to look as if he can roll out of bed and put up 20-point performances. He scored 20 on Friday and averaged 19.8 points on 13 shot attempts in 26 minutes per game during the preseason.
Aside from LaVine’s scoring, few things have come easily for the Bulls despite finishing with a 3-1preseason record. Gamesbegin to count Wednesday when they play host to the Atlanta Hawks at theUnited Center.
“As a coach, it’s hard to control the ball going in and out of the basket, and it’s hard as a player to control that,” coach Billy Donovan said. “The challenge for us is the consistency part. And we just were not consistent tonight to howwe need to play on both ends of the floor.”
Here are three takeaways from the preseason finale.
A frontcourt check-in: After a 5-for-25 performance from the field in this last two games, forward Lauri Markkanen put together the kind of bounce-back performance the team will be encouraged to see. He scored 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting and went 4 of 10 from3-point range.
Despite his preseason shooting struggles — he shot 38% from the field and 31% from 3 on seven attempts — Markkanen has remained encouraged by the offensive system. He likes that it gets him on the move and gets him the ball in differentways.
“It feels good, obviously, to finally make a couple shots,” Markkanen said. “I think that’s the level I can play every night and that’s wheremy expectations are.”
The Bulls are happy Markkanen ended on a positive note and are hopeful it can carry over to the season. They were hopeful his frontcourt mate Wendell Carter Jr. could leave the preseason with a couple of made 3s to boost his confidence as well, but Carter came away with mixed results.
Carter missed all four of his 3-point attempts and finished the preseason 1 of 12 frombeyond the arc. He was much more effective inside the 3-point line, however, converting four of his five 2s. The Bulls are planningongetting to get him more involved in the offense to take advantage of skills they believe have laid dormant. Carter’s preseason struggles make it fair towonderhowmuchtheBulls will turn him loose, but Donovan has continued tohave trust in him.
“He’s got good discretion, and he’s going to continually utilize that discretion,” Donovan said Thursday. “He’s a good team guy. He’s a guy that wants what’s best for the group. His decision-making I trust. He’s not just out there jacking bad shots.”
More Markkanen and Carter pick-and-rolls though, please.
Those look good.
“I like it a lot, coming off pick-and-roll with Wendell,” Markkanen said. “I think it gives defenses a different look. We have a whole lot of firepower with me coming off pick-and-roll. We have shooters all around the perimeter and obviously Wendell rolling, and I think it’s a good look for us.”
Donovan’s rotation remains in question:
Good luck trying to predict the Bulls rotation on opening night.
Six players did not make the trip to Oklahoma City, and although none of them projects to make the starting lineup, several key veteran reserves — Thaddeus Young, Denzel Valentine, Garrett Temple and Tomas Satoransky — have their availability in question for the start of the season. Satoransky is the only player of the four to even appear in a preseason game.
Donovan already planned to use the preseason to try out a few lineups, but this has forced his hand to get even more creative.
He put rookie PatrickWilliams in the starting lineup for the second straight game at small forward with Otto Porter Jr coming off the bench to trade defense for offense with the first and second units.
Donovan used only about seven players for most of the first half — Porter and Chandler Hutchison played extended minutes while Ryan Arcidiacono played a few to give Coby White a breather — because he wanted an extended look at Markkanen at center. To cover up for the dip in defense, Donovan surrounded him with big and versatile wing players such as Hutchison, Porter and Williams, who all are capable of playing positions 2 through 4.
“Iwanted to see Lauri at the 5 a little bit more, to see what we looked like offensively, just different things thatwe can do withhim at the 5,” Donovan said. “It was a good look for us. He did a good job. Unfortunately our defense wasn’t very good during that stretch either.”
When will the Bulls play zone?
Although the Bulls came away with a win, their starters were outscored while they were on the floor and entered the fourth quarter with a 19-point deficit. Their offense was stagnant for longer stretches, and defensively the Bulls struggled again.
They didn’t close out on shooters, didn’tprovidemuchdefensive help and just had a lackluster performance in general, allowing the Thunder — a below-average offensive team — to have their way.
As constructed, this Bulls team seemslikely to faceanuphill battle to be even adequate defensively, but Donovan has shown a willingness tomixthingsupto get a spark on the defensive end and play zone. He compared it to a “changeup defense” he could deploy during the season.
“I think coming out of timeouts, if we’re struggling, if we need something to generate maybe some misses,” Donovan said. “More often than not, you’re going to be a man-to-man team, but I do like having some zone and being able to go to it.
“We’ve played it obviously a lot more (Friday) than the previous three games, but we got to keep working on it. We’ve got to have it as something we can fall back on and maybe change the momentum of the game.”