The Bulls’ offense is so bad that they’re going to invite Jay Cutler to have the honorary game ball presentation intercepted.
The Bulls’ offense is so bad that Dragan Tarlac called and asked for a 10-day contract.
The Bulls’ offense is so bad that the notoriously long-winded Hubie Brown, who was the color analyst forFriday’s game in Cleveland, ran out of talking points.
The Bulls’ offense is so bad that it rivals the above lame attempts at one-liners. Rim shot, please, indeed. Anything better than the boring, predictable high screen-and-roll and slow ball reversal that, lately, has resulted in air balls.
Let’s get the ugly numbers out of the way first:
The Bulls score 90.4 points per game, 28th in the league. They shoot 43.2 percent, 27th in the league. They rank 24th in 3-point shooting at 31.1 percent and only Utah and Memphis take fewer 3-pointers than the Bulls’ 11.8 per game.
The Bulls have surpassed 100 points and shot 50 percent just once in 18 games.
On the bright side, the Bulls (unofficially) lead the league in heavily contested long 2-pointers jacked from just inside the 3-point line.
Granted, injuries have played a part in this process. Derrick Rose began the season tentative from a tendon injury in his ankle that also limited his explosiveness and conditioning. Kirk Hinrich and Tyrus Thomas are out, forcing the rotation to expand to hobbled role players like Lindsey Hunter and Jannero Pargo.
But injuries aren’t why the Bulls’ offensive spacing is horrible or why Rose rarely is used in isolation or why John Salmons is shooting 39.3 percent and Hinrich was at 36.8 percent before spraining his left thumb.
So what to do? Players say defend, and that’s a good start.
“Whenever we don’t play together it feeds into both ends,” Luol Deng said. “We don’t share the ball. We don’t help each other out on defense. Whenever our energy is up and we help each other on defense, we move the ball, get stops and we run. If we don’t do that, it affects everybody’s game. Until we commit defensively, I don’t think our offense will come around.”
Added Salmons: “We have to take a look at our defense. We’re going to have nights where we don’t score. But we have to commit on defense. That’s where we have to improve.”
It’s true that without a true low-post presence or a stone-cold 3-point specialist, the Bulls need to get their easy baskets off transition. That starts with stops.
But in the halfcourt, coach Vinny Del Negro has to grant Rose more freedom. And quite frankly, Rose has to play more selfishly — which goes against his nature.
During the Nov. 30 road loss to the Bucks, Rose scored seven points in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter by basically just eschewing the offense and attacking the rim. It’s unrealistic for that to happen all game. It’s imperative for it to happen more often.
In lieu of that, the big man defending the Bull who sets the high screen-and-roll is staying with Rose, flushing him to the side and forcing the ball out of his hands. The Bulls aren’t aggressive enough on their dive rolls or ball reversal — and don’t have good enough shooters the times they do reverse the ball crisply — to make defenses pay consistently.
Players insist they haven’t lost confidence.
“We still have good players on our team,” Salmons said.
Notice he didn’t say scorers.
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kcjohnson@tribune.com
