Play-In Preview: How the Chicago Bulls stack up against the Atlanta Hawks

It’s here, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the 9 vs. 10 Play-In matchup between the Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls.

Anything can happen in a one-game, win-or-go-home matchup, but here’s what we know about the two teams so far based on their regular season.

Hawks: 36-46 record, -1.6 point differential (20th), 117.8 offensive rating (11th), 119.4 defensive rating (26th)

Bulls: 39-43 record, -1.9 point differential (21st), 115.1 offensive rating (19th), 116.9 defensive rating (22nd)

The Bulls won the season-series 2-1 but by a combined point differential of three points. Here’s how the season series played out:

• December 26: Bulls 118, Hawks 113
• February 12: Bulls 136, Hawks 126
• April 1: Hawks 113, Bulls 101

Given that neither team is whole going into this matchup and that injuries impacted all three regular-season matchups, this is a difficult game to prepare for.

“You’re looking at the three games you played,” Billy Donovan said. “But you also understand in some of those games not everybody’s played. The last game, Trae Young didn’t play. But you’ll go through all three of those games. You’ll go through their last several games that they’ve played with Trae Young coming back off the injury as much as you can with having two days.”

With that said, here are my four biggest keys to the game:

Controlling the point-of-attack

The Bulls will have their hands full with Trae Young, Dejounte Murray and Bogdan Bogdanovic, all of whom are effective as scorers and playmakers in pick-and-roll situations.

Crucial for the Bulls will be avoiding switches that put Nikola Vucevic on an island. Fighting over screens, limiting paint touches and preventing those guards from being able to turn the corner will help cut off the head of the snake.

“Through the course of the game some of that stuff is impossible not to, random screens, transition, second chance points, sometimes you’re cross matched and that’s where it takes five guys,” Alex Caruso said. “We’re not asking any one person to go out there and play one-on-one with our season on the line. It’s about the five  guys out there staying the course of what we are trying to do and play to our concepts and schemes and make it as difficult as we can on them.”

When the Bulls don’t win the battle at the point-of-attack, they give up lanes to the basket which lead to layups, free throws and the massive discrepancy between the Bulls and their opponents in points from beyond the arc.

If the Bulls can prevent the Hawks from picking on mismatches, that will go a long way toward neutering a dangerous offense.

Exploiting matchups

If the Hawks, as described above, are able to get Caruso and Ayo Dosunmu off of their primary ball handlers, they’ll have a massive advantage in isolation and pick-and-roll. That will compromise the Bulls at the point of attack and unravel the Bulls defense.

The same is true on the other end. Deandre Hunter, the Hawks’ lone defensive wing, will have his hands full with DeRozan, who averaged 28 points on 60.5 true shooting against the Hawks in 2023-24.

DeRozan will repeatedly pull Trae Young into pick-and-rolls, where he can shoot over the top and draw fouls. The Hawks may try to avoid giving up switches, but if DeRozan can get Hunter into early foul trouble, it’s going to come down to whether or not his open jumpers go in.

If I’m the Hawks, I have been preparing Hunter for weeks to avoid jumping first on pump fakes and bringing his hands down on DeRozan’s sweep through moves.

Health and the transition game

This matchup may come down to who is the healthier team.

Though Zach LaVine, Patrick Williams, Lonzo Ball, Onuralp Bitim, Saddiq Bey, Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okongwu are out for the Hawks, there are more question marks for the Bulls coming into this Play-In matchup.

Ayo Dosunmu (thigh) missed the final four games of the season after suffering a thigh contusion. He was a partial participant at practice but scrimmaged afterwards. His status is still undetermined for Wednesday’s matchup.

“I feel better. I feel good,” Dosunmu said. “Hopefully, the swelling can continue to move in the right direction so I hopefully can play tomorrow.”

“It’s really just trying to be able to sprint at a top speed,” he continued. “That’s pretty much the last hurdle I’m trying to get over. I’m doing massages, different stretches, different mobility things, ice, stim, heat, everything just to try to move the bruise in that area and be able to get to a top sprint without discomfort.”

Dosunmu has been a stalwart defensively against Trae Young, who shot just 29 percent from the field against the Bulls this season and 36.2 in 2022-23.

“Probably my length and my competitiveness,” Dosunmu said when asked why he gives Young trouble. “He’s a competitor. So you when put a competitor on a competitor, that makes it fun. Just try to do whatever it takes to keep him out of rhythm and not foul him, not put him to the line. A lot of the better players in the NBA, you give them rhythm or early free throw and they see the ball go in and then they start to really get in their bag. Just try to avoid silly mistakes and make him take tough shots and make tough shots.”

Dosunmu is also a nightmare for the Hawks’ leaky transition defense, which ranks 29th. The Bulls are 21st in the league in transition frequency, and that number goes down without Dosunmu.

Health and the offensive rebounding battle

Drummond (ankle) was out of his walking boot on Sunday in New York, but did not practice. He still has swelling in the ankle he injured against the Knicks on April 9.

“I don’t know (whether he will play on Wednesday),” Donovan said. “He did some yesterday. He still has some swelling in his ankle. So for he and Ayo, I just don’t know. Tomorrow’s shootaround will be interesting to see. Even after they go through shootaround as they go through treatment and stuff we’ll see where they’re at. But Ayo did stuff in the half court today, which was good. We’ll see how he feels from there. And Andre did not do anything today. But he did do some work yesterday. But I think he ended up having some swelling that he’s dealing with today.”

Drummond has been crucial to the Bulls have been aggressive offensive rebounding attack.

The Hawks are 17th in defensive rebounding, but the Bulls have dominated them on the offensive glass this season, grabbing 18, seven and 16 in their three matchups. If Drummond can play, he can give the Bulls a massive edge against a team limited susceptible to bleeding on the offensive glass before even figuring in the injuries to three frontcourt players.

On the other end, Atlanta has been even more dominant grabbing offensive rebounds than the Bulls. Ranking fifth in offensive rebounding rate in the league, Vucevic will have his hands full if he is up in coverage without Drummond there to back him up on the glass. The Bulls will have the gang rebound the hell out of the ball.

Dosunmu and Drummond have been two of the Bulls best players in games against the Hawks this season because they are uniquely equipped with strengths that exploit two areas of weakness for the Hawks.

With Dosunmu and/or Drummond, the Bulls can put pressure on two of the Hawks’ weak spots. Without them, they’ll have to search for other ways to capitalize.

Recommended preparation materials:

• Stephen Noh wrote a comprehensive breakdown of the matchup for The Sporting News
• Jason Patt and Brad Rowland previewed the matchup on the Cash Considerations Podcast

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