Did you hear the one about the NBA team that started a stretch of six of seven home games Friday night at the United Center, a prime opportunity to make up lost ground and turn negative headlines into positive ones?
“I’ve been addressing a lot of things with the team lately and that wasn’t real high on the list of things that I had to talk about,” Jim Boylan said.
Tongue firmly in cheek, rim shot nailed, the Bulls coach and his players used humor to shift the emphasis from off-the-court controversy to on-the-court action.
Returning home after a road trip during which Joakim Noah made daily headlines for all the wrong reasons, a light approach might have been the right idea against the high-octane Golden State Warriors’ offense.
Boylan has preached an up-tempo style since taking over. But he also warned against trying to outrun the league’s second-highest-scoring offense.
That offense was in full effect during the third quarter, as the Warriors erased all of what once had been a 14-point deficit. Baron Davis, who scored 19 points in the third quarter, drained a three-pointer to tie the game at 84-84 entering the fourth quarter.
Davis often pushed the ball up the court for quick shots in transition, spoiling the Bulls’ desire to play zone defense.
Thanks to 63.2 percent shooting, the Bulls led 58-50 at halftime, even with Warriors coach Don Nelson breaking out his “Bang-A-Ben” strategy twice down the stretch. Ben Wallace made one of four free throws.
Andres Nocioni, shaking off his sore hip, had 18 points at the break.
Nocioni scored eight quick points in a 16-3 run that opened a 14-point lead midway through the second quarter. The Warriors missed their first 14 field-goal attempts in the quarter as the Bulls employed their zone defense often to stymie them.
But Davis, wearing an ensemble of pads and bands that would make a Bears lineman proud, heated up to score eight points in 59 seconds down the first-half stretch.
For the third straight game, the Bulls played without Kirk Hinrich, who sat with back spasms.
Boylan aimed for spasms of laughter when quizzed one more time about the controversy that roiled the Bulls’ four-game trip, most of it surrounding Noah.
“We had a good time,” he said. “We went to Philadelphia and saw the City of Brotherly Love. We went to Atlanta and got a taste of the South. We went to Orlando and saw Disney World. And then we went down to Miami and got a little bit of South Beach. So it was a great trip.”
The Bulls hope the trip back to respectability begins soon.
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kcjohnson@tribune.com
