You know the old saying in the NBA that when you’re playing a team like the Los Angeles Clippers starting a pair of future Hall of Famers, if Nicolas Batum can beat you, well, you just shake his hand and move on.
The Bulls late Monday night were seen shaking hands with Nicolas Batum.
That’s because the veteran forward getting a rare start in a season in which he’s posted double figure scoring games just seven times since Christmas made eight of 10 three-pointers for a season-high 24 points in shooting the Clippers to a 124-112 victory over the Bulls.
“They were hot and stayed hot and we didn’t give ourselves a chance to get back in the game,” observed DeMar DeRozan. “Twenty threes; once that happens it’s tough to beat anybody. Hats off to them.”
Nothing much else to say other than the Bulls did what they had to with a 2-1 Western Conference road trip, even if Portland’s players maybe were joining local protesters instead of playing. The Bulls six-game road winning streak ended as the Bulls dropped to 36-39. But the light remains green for them with seven wins in their last 10 games, and for the season to a plus-one point differential. That’s perhaps the most accurate historical measure for ultimate success. An even zero suggests a .500 team. At plus-one, the Bulls are seventh in the Eastern Conference a fraction behind Toronto.
They’re still 10th in the conference a game behind both Toronto and Atlanta, which is the only measure that really counts. But they’ve pretty much seem to have clinched that 10th spot with a magic number of four basically against both Washington and Orlando with seven games left for the Bulls. Factoring in conference standings with the Wizards and the Pacers in 12th, pretty much any combination of four with Bulls wins and those teams’ losses gets the Bulls into the play-in tournament.
But with a game against the Hawks next week, the Bulls still are in position the way they have been playing for a run to No. 8 in the conference.
“We got two games out of [the trip],” DeRozan acknowledged. “But we need every single game down the stretch; got seven left. Going back home to play the Lakers again [Wednesday] and have to start a rhythm again.”
It’s not unreasonable to believe so the way the Bulls in the last six games before Monday had three double digit wins and two in double overtime. And to his credit, Bulls coach Billy Donovan wasn’t giving anyone a chance to make an excuse with the Bulls playing the second of a back to back while the Clippers had been off. Donovan noted the unusual schedule with both games in the same arena in Los Angeles and a West Coast night game after a Sunday afternoon game. And staying in a hotel across the street from the arena.
“You couldn’t have asked for a better situation [on] a back to back,” said Donovan. “Maybe it had a little bit of an effect. But the convenience of no air travel, not getting in two or three in the morning, able to get a good night’s sleep; all those things were in our favor on this trip.”
And the Bulls with Zach LaVine with 23 points leading three Bulls scoring at least 20 and the Bulls shooting 54 percent overall did enough to have a chance.
As long as the Clippers didn’t make 20 three pointers to nine for the Bulls.
Oh yeah, that microcosm again. Difficult calculus.
‘We’ve had to protect the paint this year and that’s why we give up a lot of threes,” Donovan revealed. "But there’s a drastic drop when shots are contested. I thought we gave up too many uncontested threes; the ones we did contest they made because we gave them too many looks early.
“I think we could have been better,” said Donovan. “We have been better most of the year defensively. Maybe since the All-Star break we are second or third in the league defensively, so we’ve done a good job. But tonight we didn’t do a good enough job all the way around. Our ability to scramble and rotate was challenging. Things got opened up. We were late helping. I don’t think our communications and rotations were great.”
Look, you can’t win them all.
Although Donovan downplayed the notion, the Bulls’ strategy seemed like the right one. The Bulls seemed often to be trapping and helping on Clippers charismatic firebrand Kawhi Leonard, who along with another emergency starter, Eric Gordon, both had 22 points. Leonard has scored more than 30 points in three of his last six games as he’s actually playing regularly for a change with Paul George out injured. Alex Caruso was a late scratch for the Bulls. And Leonard scored 33 points in a big comeback win against the Bulls earlier this season.
So get the ball out of his hands. I was down with that.
And down went the Bulls.
“The only time we really went after [Leonard] is in the post on mismatches,” insisted Donovan. “We let Patrick [Williams] play him one-on-one. If there were mismatches we were in there digging, but it was more the drives where the ball was been driven, the ball would get kicked back out and we were late rotating from there.”
I didn’t fully see it that way because Batum had a heck of a lot of open looks. After the game, he said he didn’t recall dribbling the ball. And the Bulls were trying. You know, Patrick Beverley wouldn’t have it any other way.
Beverley, of course, spent four years with the Clippers and was one of their most popular players. It also was where he helped continue a long standing feud with Russell Westbrook, who became his teammate with the Lakers and also became a buyout figure like Beverley.
Westbrook’s tenure with the Clippers hasn’t been quite as celebrated as Beverley’s with the Bulls, now 10-6 with Beverley. And it’s difficult to sell a rivalry matchup between two guys who their teams didn’t want.
But Westbrook was going to be into this one, and from the start when he scored over Beverley out of the post on the Clippers first possession. Westbrook immediately began to celebrate with his rock-the-cradle pantomime for Beverley. Like Beverley’s too small enactment which he produced for LeBron James Sunday, Westbrook eagerly went after the smaller Beverley and immediately faced the crowd and animatedly celebrated about producing against such a small man.
In a league with no fighting and neither being much for that in their careers, Westbrook and Beverley have a contentious history. It began 10 years ago when slowing to call a timeout in a playoff game, Beverley came up under Westbrook trying to steal the ball and caused a knee ligament tear for Westbrook. After repeated similar incidents, Westbrook was quoted saying Beverley’s defense is a canard and he just runs around trying to trick media and fans. Beverley, apparently traumatized, accused Westbrook of trying to end his career with such accusations.
So Westbrook was into this game, and he had an effect with three second quarter steals that got the Clippers in cascades of transition. Westbrook also had 10 of the Clippers staggering 41 assists, the Clippers with 26 fast break points and the threes never giving the Bulls much chance after the Bulls led 32-27 after the first quarter. LaVine closed that quarter with yet another of those uncanny twisting threes with a fraction left on the clock.
“We turned the ball over, let them get out in transition, too many transition points given up the first half,” DeRozan agreed. “Just didn’t have good possessions consistently often enough to hang in there, especially with them shooting the way they shot. We didn’t give ourselves a chance; we were a step slow on everything. We didn’t make guys put the ball on the floor. They were getting shots off, they got a rhythm and were knocking them in.”
The Clippers began to create their separation in the second quarter and led 62-55 at half with 11 of 21 threes. Though the Bulls were hanging in there with seven of 12. But the Bulls could not sustain.
“I thought they amped up their physicality, their aggressiveness, and we were taken out of offense and got caught too much standing and fighting pressure instead of cutting against pressure,” Donovan observed.
That was a lot against the Bulls reserves, who were a lot less daunting. They didn’t land a three and were outscored 33-23. Andre Drummond did have 11 points and eight rebounds.
With seven third quarter threes while the Bulls missed all seven of theirs in the third, that was a wrap. The Clippers led 99-77 going into the fourth quarter and Donovan finally emptied his bench with about four and a half minutes left in the game.
Not exactly in the Nic of time, as it were.
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