Luol Deng cut around the garbage can, stopped and popped.
He took passes from a Bulls assistant at the top of the arc, pivoted and gunned. He rattled in bank shots from 15 feet. He walked out to about 20 feet beyond the three-point arc, sprinted to about 18-foot range, pulled up and lofted in a series of floaters.
Then he walked to the left side of the court and did the same. Over and over and over again. In one stretch in an extra shooting session after a Bulls film session Wednesday, he was 16 of 18.
“It’s not a fluke,” P.J. Brown said of Deng’s late-game performance in the Bulls’ Game 2 victory over the Heat in their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series. “Not when you put in the kind of time he puts in shooting and practicing all the time.
“He knows he’s going to come back and his confidence never wavers. He knows that eventually his shot is going to come back as long as he sticks to his technique that he has constantly worked on time after time.”
Deng was 9 of 12 in the second half Tuesday night, including 6 of 7 in the fourth quarter, and finished with 26 points.
Ben Gordon was 7 of 10 in the first half and 11 of 19 for the night, including 5 of 8 from three-point range, as he scored 27. Hinrich was a solid 6 of 12, including 2 of 2 three-pointers, for his 14 points.
As a team, the Bulls shot 55 percent in Game 1, 64.7 from the three-point arc. But can an offense predicated on the perimeter game keep it up when it takes its 2-0 lead to Miami for Game 3 Friday night? More important, do the Bulls need to?
“We’re going to find out, I’m sure, at some point,” Bulls coach Scott Skiles said. “Probably one of these games here we’re not going to shoot the ball like that and we’re going to have to rely on our defense. Our defense has been, for us, average. It’s above average by a lot of team’s standards but for us average.
“We still have several areas we have to tighten up and we have to assume [the Heat is] going to play better offensively on their home floor. If they do and we’re not draining threes all over the place, we’re going to need our defense, so we hope it’s there for us.”
If the shooting goes, it’s a safe bet it will only be a temporary condition for the second most accurate three-point shooting team in the NBA.
Ben Wallace watched the Bulls’ young bombers Tuesday night just as he has watched them all season in his first season with the team, and still is impressed.
“I see those guys every day,” he said. “I see Ben Gordon when everybody leaves the gym, I see him come back in at 5, 6 at night. I see Lu, when everybody leaves the gym, he’s still in there working on his game. So it’s not a surprise to me. These guys put in a lot of work.
“The scary thing about that is I don’t think they really realize how great they can be in this league. They’re just happy-go-lucky, just happy to be here and any time you see guys like that, you always cheer for them and you’re always excited to see them do well.”
Gordon, in particular, tinkers with his shooting like he’s tuning the engine of a Maserati.
“He kind of shoots like he dresses,” said Bulls assistant coach Ron Adams, who, among his other duties, works with the team on shooting. “He’s a very sharp and precise dresser and he takes great pride in his offensive game. That’s what you have to do.
“In a sense, that’s his whole business. That’s Ben Gordon Enterprises, how he can shoot the basketball, his offensive repertoire. He seizes the moment. Any scorer, shooter wants to be perfect.”
Gordon said the key Tuesday compared to a 7-of-19 night in Game 1 that came mostly from the point position, was that he did not force many attempts.
“I took a lot of my shots in rhythm,” he said.
The Bulls’ quick and precise ball movement also made the difference.
“It definitely makes it easier as opposed to us holding the ball and trying to go one-on-one,” Gordon said. “If you look at teams like Phoenix, they really have great ball movement and all those guys shoot a high percentage because they get their shots in rhythm and they shoot the ball when they’re open.
“It definitely gets you in a good groove.”
Deng was in anything but a groove early in Game 2, missing his first four shots and five of the first six — a 16-foot jumper, two on short hooks, a layup and a 7-foot jumper. He said the key to turning things around was keeping his composure.
“In the past, last year definitely and the year before when I didn’t play well in the first half, I panicked,” he said.
“But there’s a lot more I can do in the game than just scoring, so I just let that come, just stick with playing defense, rebounding, running the floor, passing. When you do those things, you start getting back into the game.”
Deng ended up 4 of 4 from the foul line with five rebounds, six assists, two steals and one blocked shot. He said he relied on his teammates to help him out of his early funk.
“I came out with a mind-set to be more aggressive, but I was too aggressive and I was almost rushing my shots,” he said. “But my teammates did a good job of telling me that at halftime and I slowed down a little bit.”
Deng won’t have to rush if the Bulls continue to move the ball crisply and efficiently, Adams said.
“When we move the ball and deliver the ball to each other well, our shooters become good shooters,” he said. “It just works hand in glove.”
And they will continue to get easy baskets if they keep up their defensive intensity, Brown said. They have a combined 35-9 advantage over the Heat in fast-break points in the first two games.
“Our offense was there [in Game 2], but the philosophy that has been instilled here is let the defense create your offense and that’s where we try to set the tone,” Brown said. “When we play hard on the defensive end, it makes the offensive game a lot easier.
“We also know you have got to get in that paint a little bit. Our shots were falling [in Game 2] but on the road, you never know how it can go. It’s hard to win games consistently in this game by shooting J’s all the time.”
Shooting for the moon
The Bulls’ marksmanship against the Heat is way up across the board in this season’s playoffs compared with last season’s 4-2 series loss. %% 2007 2006 48.8 FIELD-GOAL PERCENTAGE 44.5 41.2 THREE-POINT PERCENTAGE 39.5 84.6 FREE-THROW PERCENTAGE 74.2 %%
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misaacson@tribune.com
