Chicago Bulls at Atlanta Hawks Takeaways: Chicago's Abysmal Performance
The Chicago Bulls lost to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night, making the Bulls 2-5 in their last seven games.
If you watched any part of the game that wasn’t the fourth quarter, then you surely were disappointed, perhaps even disgusted with the horrendous performance from the Chicago Bulls.
The Bulls came out with a lack of energy, and the team appeared to just be running through their motions. That was reflected at the end of the first quarter, when the Bulls had already found themselves in a 22-point deficit that they wouldn’t be able to recover from.
The two best players on the Bulls, Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade, spoke out and were upset with the ugly loss. Nick Friedell of ESPN posted what Butler said after the game:
It’s terrible basketball. That’s not the way we’re supposed to play. It’s so disappointing because the way we practice isn’t the way that we play in the game. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. Starting from me going all the way down the line, we’ve got to be better as a whole, as a team. Otherwise, we’re just going to keep getting our asses beat. It’s bad.
As for Wade, he decided to tweet an apology for both his and the team’s awful performance.
Chicago’s future continues to look gloomy, and Saturday’s loss provided more evidence that the Bulls can’t compete with the top teams in the league (unless it’s the Toronto Raptors, of course). Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s tough loss to the Hawks.
Jan 20, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Michael Carter-Williams (7) is defended by Atlanta Hawks guard Dennis Schroder (17) and center Dwight Howard (8) in the first quarter at Philips Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
Spoiler (to Nobody?) – The Bulls CAN’T Shoot Threes
In the “new era” of the NBA, several teams have begun utilizing the 3-point line in their offenses, and with high levels of success.
The Golden State Warriors earned a championship trophy off of that play style, and this year the Houston Rockets have shown the league just how good a team can be if you surround a player with 3-point shooters and continue to fire away.
For Chicago, however, shooting 3s is something the Bulls can’t do, and something they shouldn’t do either.
Chicago came into Saturday’s game already dead last in 3-point percentage per game (at 31.5 percent).
This game versus the Hawks showed why the Bulls can become so inefficient and awful in games sometimes, and that’s because once Chicago’s offense is stagnant, the resulting lack of movement forces the Bulls to take terrible shots, with many of them coming from 3-pointers.
The Bulls started off 0-for-11 from 3-point territory. If the Bulls want to have any chance of winning games, then they’ll need to always have good ball movement and only take 3-pointers when wide open (cough, Niko, cough).
Even the supposed “sharpshooters” for Chicago aren’t shooting well this year: Doug McDermott is only hitting 34 percent of his 3s, and Nikola Mirotic is struggling as well at 30 percent.
The Bulls aren’t shooting well now, and there’s little hope of that changing anytime soon.
Jan 20, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Dwyane Wade (3) in action against the Atlanta Hawks in the first quarter at Philips Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
Dwyane Wade is as Cold as the Icy Gatorade Commercial he Stars in
It’s a cold, January night.
The Bulls are in trouble; in their second game of a back-to-back, the players look tired even before tipoff and they’re undermanned. Because of this, despite coach Fred Hoiberg’s assertion that Dwyane Wade would not play in back-to-backs, Hoiberg inserts Wade into the starting lineup in hopes to get a boost.
Rather than help the team, however, the fatigued and sore Wade struggles, shooting 2-for-10 from the field, 0-for-2 from deep. But it’s okay… we can’t hate on Wade for this poor game, because he was battling through injury and played in two consecutive nights.
The story above would have been a good reason to excuse Wade’s struggles last night against the Hakws. Unfortunately, it’s not the truth. In reality, Wade hadn’t played a game since Tuesday, was feeling just fine, and still managed to have one of his worst games with the Bulls.
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Yikes.
It’s not just Saturday’s game where Wade has been ineffective for Chicago, but rather the entire month of January.
In the seven games this month that Wade has played in, he has only shot above 39 percent twice. And the two times he did shoot over that threshold, the Bulls still couldn’t win either of the games.
Beyond January, the 35-year-old is still putting up 18.4 points per game for Chicago, but he’s doing it on 42.3 percent shooting, the worst mark ever in his career.
I’m not questioning Wade’s talent or the profound impact he’s had on the Bulls youth off the court (especially with Jimmy Butler), but it’s fair to wonder whether Wade’s best days are behind him, both in his career and with Chicago.
Jan 20, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Rajon Rondo (9) and guard Michael Carter-Williams (7) and forward Jimmy Butler (21) and guard Dwyane Wade (3) on the bench against the Atlanta Hawks in the fourth quarter at Philips Arena. The Hawks won 102-93. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
Are the Bulls Setting the Stage for a Full-blown Rebuild?
With the trade deadline coming to a close in just a couple of weeks, it’s time for the Bulls management to start asking themselves what the best moves for the future of the franchise are.
When the first Jimmy Butler trade rumors popped up this season (which was always, but really around New Year’s), the news disappeared when the Bulls went on a beautiful three-game winning streak off of Butler’s 37 points per game and clutch prowess.
Now, however, the Bulls are 2-5 in their last seven, and despite holding on to the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, are not looking like a team that can do anything other than lose in the first round (assuming they can even get there).
It’s clear that despite Butler’s exceptional talent level, unless the Bulls can surround him with much better players, the Bulls will be stuck in no-mans-land, otherwise known in the NBA as “too good for a lottery pick, but too bad to ever compete.”
Dwyane Wade added onto the possibilities of a full rebuild when he recently said that Jimmy was a huge reason as to why he was here, and that he had no interest of participating in a rebuild.
So, theoretically, if the Bulls traded Butler, they could assume Wade would be gone as well. Then, if they deal with the Rondo issue and make a couple of other trades, Chicago could officially enter a total rebuild.
Although it still remains unlikely that the Bulls actually do trade Butler, Chicago’s poor performances of late may cause General Manager Gar Forman to really consider dealing him.
