Life without Coby White proved difficult for the Chicago Bulls in Thursday night’s 126-111 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers at the United Center.
Without their starting guard, the Bulls lacked the secondary shot creation White provides them.
“He’s one of our best guys in the two main game, pick-and-roll, one of our best shooters in general,” Nikola Vucevic said post-game. “He gets downhill he creates a lot, he puts a lot of pressure on the rim and you know, gets me in the pocket, kick outs, inside out. So you miss a guy like that. It’s always difficult. So we’re trying to find ways to attack differently, but it’s hard. Our offense is heavily based on pick-and-roll play. When you lose one of your best players that does that, it’s tough.”
Coming off am emotional and exhausting overtime win the night prior in Indiana, this was always going to be a tough game to prepare for.
White’s absence made that even more of a challenge.
“I liked the way our guys competed tonight,” Donovan continued. “You know it was a hard game last night going into overtime. But I think you guys mentioned before the game, Indiana had the same situation coming in Oklahoma City (the previous night on the second night of a back-to-back), right. This is kind of what we all sign up for. It’s back-to-backs, you’ve got to play. It’s next man up.”
Jevon Carter, Alex Caruso, and Torrey Craig stepped up, getting three-point shots up earlier on in the shot clock than usual. The idea being that the Bulls had less opportunity to create a good look in the 24-second clock, so if a three became available earlier in the clock, they had to take it.
The team as a whole shot 16-of-35 from beyond the arc as that trio combined for 11-of-18. On one of the Bulls better shooting nights of the season, they still lost the three-point battle by 12 points with the Clippers making 20-of-41 attempts.
Paul George scored 28 points on 11-of-12 shooting. Kawhi Leonard scored 27 points on 12-of-17 shooting. Even if the Bulls had White, it would have been difficult to compete with that kind of shot making.
Without the ability to generate shots from the perimeter, Andre Drummond was tasked with offsetting that uphill climb against the numbers. He was vicious on the offensive glass in the second half, and had 15 points on 7-of-8 shooting in just 16 minutes.
Opportunity was there for Ayo Dosunmu as well. But he tallied just seven points on 2-of-11 shooting from the field. With the Bulls in need of more creation, he needed to get to the rim, draw fouls and create closeout opportunities for his teammates.
“I thought tonight was a great learning experience for Ayo, because I think this was a game where he really could have generated more downhill and maybe tried to create some close outs for some guys,” Donovan said. “So I think he can really get better from this game.”
Coby White’s injury outlook
Late in Wednesday’s game against the Indiana Pacers, Pascal Siakam fell onto Coby White’s leg, forcing the Bulls guard out of the remainder of the game. Though it looked like it could have been devastating, Billy Donovan said the hip injury was, ” not severe” following imaging done on Thursday morning.
Though White sat out against the Clippers, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that a return on Saturday against the Washington Wizards was in play.
Donovan added some color on a potential return date ahead of the Clippers game.
“It’s probably going to be when he can start to feel comfortable to get back to playing,” Donovan said. “All the imaging came back relatively clean. He is dealing with discomfort and soreness there. So it’s just a matter of how quickly and soon he can get over that.”
With the lowly Wizards in town on Saturday and the lowly Portland Trail Blazers in town on Monday, the Bulls could realistically take care of business in those games and get him a full week off ahead of the matchup with the Houston Rockets on Thursday.
