"BlueAlliance Translation" When Lavin meets the right person, the bull truly awakens
At the start of the 2021-2022 season, the Bulls proudly topped the Eastern Conference with a record of 4 wins and 0 losses. It was the Bulls' best start to the season in twenty-five years, and it was exactly what the Bulls' management wanted to see. They recruited good players such as DeRozan, Lonzo Ball and Caruso in the offseason precisely to build a winning army.
Since Rose tore a torn ligament against the 76ers, Chicago fans have not had such high expectations for the home team. After Ross's devastating injury, the Bulls did not immediately decline, but the trend was irreversible. Joan Kim-Noah felt "uncomfortable" when he played; Coach Thibodeau was fired for conflict with management; the "Three Alphas" experiment failed; Foreman and Paxon let Butler go because they didn't want to pay the top salary; Portis beat his teammate to the point of fracture at the training ground; they got some lottery shows but ended up hitting the water. In rumors, the bull's days were turbulent — if only that were really just rumors.
Within five years, these things followed. The Bulls, who won two consecutive triples during jordan's time, were the fourth most valuable team in the NBA and had the third largest media market, but the long period of chaos has left the team on the fringes of the league. After trading Butler, the Bulls set the worst record in the league, and fans whose hearts were frozen have been calling for dawn.
Thus, change came into being. The team recruited former Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas, former 76ers executive Marc Eversley and coach Billy Donovan, who reinvigorated the team in just one and a half years, spending a lot of money to build a lineup around All-Star guard Zach Lavin, just to embark on a long-lost championship race. So far, everything has gone well. It is worth mentioning that this opening four consecutive wins is the first four consecutive wins of LaVine's career, you know, he has been in the league for eight years, played 415 games.
Entering the new season, many people think the Bulls' lineup will be mainly offensive, because their squad includes Lavin, DeRozan and Vucevic, who traded before the 2021 trade deadline. However, in the first four games, the Bulls led the league defensively, scoring 97.1 points per 100 possessions, ranking fourth in the league in defensive efficiency. Although they have been attacked the most times in the league, this is Vucevic's headache. In the past eight seasons, he has had seven seasons where opponents have shot more than 60 percent from the basket.
How to build a stable backline? Interference, interference, or interference:
Ball and Caruso are two of the team's top defenders, both with the speed to get around the cover and the height to change defenses. Rookie player Ayo Dosem also showed a number of defensive highlights, he can bypass the cover, keep up with the attacking players and disrupt the opponent's offensive intentions. Sophomore striker Patrick Williams, who missed out on a preseason injury, and former Celtics reserve player Javent Green have the ability to fly around the world and the ability to protect Vucevic's rim weakness, not to mention that he has averaged less than one block per game in his career. Everyone on the Bulls, including the star players, tried to do the little things defensively: bypassing the cover, raising their hands high, and coming back in time. Every coach will tell you that these things are not as small as they seem.
As a result, the Bulls' data of making opponents mistakes leads the league. Caruso is tied for top of the list of errors with De Chantey Mu and VanVleet, Vucevic has a pair of dexterous hands that can reach out and intercept opponents' passes at the right time, and he is also tied for fifth in the list of errors with this ability, and Bauer and Green are also in the top fifty. Meanwhile, the Bulls rank third in the league in terms of steals and seventh in blocks, with an offensive error rate of 20.4 percent. Each opponent's mistake is an opportunity to switch between attack and defense, which is usually performed by Bauer, who will accelerate his advance, look for vacancies, and score points easily:
This fast-paced offense is a subversion of last year's offensive model, but for now, it's a fast-paced style of play that's effective.
The Bulls compared last season to this season's game data
Bauer's speed-oriented style of play favors easy scoring, while DeRozan's flanking style of play with the ball and efficient frame can open up deadlocks in positional warfare. The Bulls' offense got bogged down against the Raptors' tough defense before, and DeRozan, the former Raptor superstar, stepped up to take over the game, cutting 11 of the team's 26 points in the fourth quarter to put the Raptors in jail.
Last season, LaVine's use in the fourth quarter was second only to Curry and Embiid, and the use rate at key moments was as high as the league's second- And DeRozan's arrival meant that Lavin finally had to no longer have to bear such a heavy burden. LaVine is in better shape after removing some of the burden: LaVine's true shooting percentage, efficiency value and assist turnover ratio are all better than he was in the last All-Star season. When his teammates were in a slump, he had the ability to stand up and turn the tide, just as he slashed 23 points in the second half of the opening game to lead the team to victory.
LaVine felt the drama of the Fire Tropics winning, and Bulls fans have seen it more than once. What they hadn't seen was that even though LaVine felt cold, the team still won. Last season, when LaVine hit less than 50 percent, the Bulls lost 11-18. And this season, even Vucevic's shooting feel is very difficult, and the Bulls can have a good winning percentage.
That's exactly what the Bulls did in the offseason: they wanted to gather as much talent as possible, to let LaVine know he could win in the Windy City, and not to have to step up and save the team. So the Bulls' management orchestrated a big gamble: They used their salary space to sign Ball, DeRozan and Caruso, rather than discussing a maximum salary extension with LaVine in the offseason.
LaVine was named an All-Star for the first time last season and won the championship with the U.S. national team. Bulls management believes that Lavine is more focused on winning as much as possible than a 5-year, $200 million top salary contract, and of course, he doesn't mind having both.
"It was my most exciting moment since I came to the Bulls." Recently, Lavin told Sports Illustrated, "You know, we're going to really fight for the championship now, and that's a really great feeling." ”
Through these four games, you can see the bull coaching staff's tactical arrangements: how to defend the team, better awareness of the frame, look for better shooting opportunities, speed up and reduce the physical consumption of the main lineup during the offensive and defensive conversion, to ensure that the players can have a good performance at key moments. While doubts about the Bulls' future performance have always existed, for now, we can fully understand the joy of the Bulls fans and feel that this long-dormant team is gradually recovering.