INDIANAPOLIS —The Chicago Bulls are 0-3 against the Indiana Pacers and now are responsible for three of their 12 wins.
It didn’t have to be that way.
Leading by as many as 14 with 7:14 to go in the fourth quarter, the Pacers surged back to take a lead with less than 40 seconds to play. Andrew Nembhard, Pascal Siakam and Aaron Nesmith helped Indiana reach a level of physicality the Bulls simply couldn’t match. The Bulls had a chance to win it on a Coby White layup that Nesmith deterred, and the Bulls fell 113-110.
Losing to bad teams has been a common trend for Chicago this season: they are 12-12 against teams below .500 and 3-9 against teams below them in the Eastern Conference.
The Bulls did have some strong performers: Nikola Vucevic (25 points, nine rebounds) led the Bulls in the scoring department, and drilled yet another tremendously clutch shot — a banked-in three with 33.5 seconds to go.
Matas Buzelis (20 points, eight rebounds) was particularly strong in the first half, where he scored 15 of his 20. It was Ayo Dosunmu who spearheaded the second half by repeatedly attacking the rim and generating 19 points.
Josh Giddey rejoined the starting lineup for the first time since returning from the hamstring injury that cost him three weeks. He produced 10 points, four rebounds and seven assists in 28 minutes.
The goal is for both Giddey and Coby White (14 points) to play both ends of this back-to-back before getting re-evaluated to determine whether they can play both in their two-game set in Miami. Both are expected to stay at or below 30 minutes per game as they fully re-integrate.
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Up next: The Bulls will have three matchups with the Miami Heat in the next four nights. The first is at home — a makeup game for the postponed Condensation Game™️. The next two will both be in Miami.
Not only does this represent an opportunity to get back at the Heat, who beat them handily 143-107 in late November (in the Play-In Tournament in each of the last three seasons, in case you forgot), but also a chance to make a play in the East standings.
Miami (25-22) sits in the seventh seed, just 1.5 games ahead of the tenth-seeded Bulls (23-24). Winning two or three of these sets would position the Bulls to get to the top side of the Play-In bracket, and potentially make a move towards the sixth seed —above Play-In range — with the Trade Deadline looming.
In the last five games, the Bulls have been one of the best three-point shooting teams in the league. Averaging 20.2 made threes per game, and shooting nearly 45 percent. And that followed up in their loss to the Pacers, shooting 12-of-30 from deep — low volume but still 40 percent.
So it’s no wonder the Bulls’ offense has been atop the league over the last few weeks, first with a 124.7 offensive rating. But when it comes to evaluating the quality of the team — beyond the makes and misses — how do you factor that in?
“What you try to do is look at the expected field goal percentage on the shots that we’re getting, and clearly we’re out-shooting the expected number,” Billy Donovan said.
Their location-adjusted expected effective field goal percentage is atop the league at 56.5 percent, meaning the quality of their shots has been incredibly high. And even though their effective field goal percentage, as a team, is 61.4 — best in the league — they are way outperforming the quality of their shots.
“You go through these ebbs and flows where maybe you get really good shots, you don’t shoot the ball well, or maybe you get great shots, and you shoot it way above your average,” Donovan said. “I think the biggest thing you want to do is just, on a consistent basis, just generate good shots.”
The Bulls have generated good shots all season. They rank third in Second Spectrum’s shot quality metric, behind only Golden State and Oklahoma City. When factoring in identity of shooters, they drop to 13th, which in itself is telling. The Bulls are optimizing their shot profile and maxing out what they can do with what they have.
But when it comes to the talent, they’re still lacking.
How were the Bulls only up by four points at the half? The Pacers shot -12 percent at the rim. Wow, what an ugly half of basketball that was.
But hey, Buzelis with an aggressive 15 points! Knocking down threes is always great, but I appreciate the putback dunk on the opening possession and that crafty footwork floater in the lane even more. And he blocked Dave’s GOAT, Johnny Furphy! Redemption for Buzelis’ teammate Noa Essengue!
Dosunmu was an absolute freight train in the second half. The dude just kept attacking the rim relentlessly, and nobody in a Pacers uniform could stop him. The closer we get to the trade deadline, the more and more I hope that Dosunmu is still a Bull after the deadline passes.
Shoutout to Jalen Smith for continuing to bring it as he shifted back to a reserve role tonight. That’s nine straight games scoring in double figures, a double-double off the bench, and his three-ball is still falling. A very valuable player for this team right now.
…the Bulls are 0-3 against the 12-36 Pacers. LMAO.
Well, a game happened.
I thought both teams weren’t super great this game. Lot of bad shots, missed assignments, blown layups and a lack of Johnny Furphy.
Buzelis was awesome from the get-go. He was aggressive, which led to his good three-point shooting. Good job rebounding as well but he’s got to get to the line more.
Bulls have had some real lulls on offense since Tre Jones went down. Someone has to help the half-court offense during that time.
Great game by Vucevic. He was awesome offensively and impactful defensively. He’s really come on as of late defensively. Simply by getting in the way and deterring shots, he has helped the team on that end.
— Big Dave
