Bulls Looking For Offense After Losing Two Straight At Home
The NBA Central division Chicago Bulls find themselves in a huge hole after losing Game 2 of their first round best of seven series against the Washington Wizards. The Bulls are not down 2-0 and headed to Washington for 2 straight games.
After the two losses at home to Washington, it is clear the Bulls need a scorer during crunch time. Over a 12-minute period, management at the Bulls knows they need to work on their offense, especially finding a scorer during the offseason.
In those disastrous 12 minutes, the Bulls scored just 4 baskets. Chicago committed turnovers, missed shots, recorded a 24-second violation, missed free throws and looked just out of sorts.
In those 12 minutes of play, a complete NBA quarter and at home, Chicago succeeded in Joakim Noah scoring on a drive, a jumper from Kirk Hinrich, a dunk by Taj Gibson and a Noah lay-in.
The Bulls scored four hoops in 12 minutes, but equally as bad if not worse Chicago went 8 full minutes without scoring a field goal.
In game 2, the Bulls blew a lead of 10 points midway during the final quarter, just two days after leading by 13 in the third and losing.
With Carmelo Anthony most likely testing the free agent market, the Bulls management must start thinking about convincing him to play in the Windy City.
However, management cannot stop there they need to look at other free agents, trades, players playing in Europe, draft picks and basically every option they can explore has to be explored.
Washington knew when they played hard down the stretch of the regular season to move from a No. 7 seed to No. 5 that they could stifle the anemic offense of the Bulls.
Washington players and coaches knew they could shutdown D. J. Augustin by putting Trevor Ariza on the Bulls guard.
Augustin helped the Bulls after being acquired earlier in the season, but when the playoffs arrive, a 6-foot guard needs to be an exceptional offensive threat to succeed.
Washington knows that Augustin is not that and put Ariza who is 8 inches taller on him. Augustin was shut out during the final 13 minutes of play.
The Wizards also knew that two of Chicago’s most talented players on offense Mike Dunleavy and Carlos Boozer sit during the fourth quarter due to not playing defense all that well.
Washington knew Chicago has gone up to 10 minutes without scoring a single basket.
The offense left when Derrick Rose was helped off the court early in the season with another knee injury and when the team traded its high scorer at the time, Luol Deng, due to financial reasons.
With just under 7 minutes remaining in Game 2, the Bulls led by 10 points and should have been thinking the series would be tied heading to Washington.
However, the wheels fell off from that point. Turnovers, missed shots, offensive fouls and the Wizards were soon taking control.
Now the Bulls must regroup and find offense between now and Game 3 or they will be one game closer to going home for the summer.
