So far this season, the Chicago Bulls have been all about balls clanging about: the ones they hope to amass for the Draft-lottery hopper in May by virtue of their mounting losses and the ones they’ve hoisted unsuccessfully at rims throughout the NBA.
But for one night, at least, the Bulls shot and generally looked like they wanted to win a game. And win they did, topping the Charlotte Hornets on a night when Kemba Walker, the Hornets’ dynamic playmaker, looked almost unstoppable (47 points).
Given how Chicago coach Fred Hoiberg wants to play night in, night out, this was a good game for “Hoiball,” as The Athletic’s Jon Greenberg saw it:
After scoring just seven points in the first quarter in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, they scored 26 on Friday. So you knew it wouldn’t be that bad of a loss. But by the end of the night, the fans were celebrating free Big Macs for the first time this season.
The Bulls (3-10) shot 51.6 percent and hit 17 of 34 3-pointers. It was the most points the Bulls have scored at home this season by … 32 points? Is that right?
Before the game, Hoiberg was asked if he watched the Houston Rockets drop 90 in the first half on Thursday and he cracked, “I’d like to get 90 in a game.”
…
A game after point guards Jerian Grant and Kris Dunn combined to go 2-for-16 from the field with six turnovers, the duo combined to shoot 14-for-22 with 12 assists and two turnovers. Hey, if your point guards aren’t godawful, it turns out it’s easier to score. I didn’t get my master’s in Hoiball (I got one in the humanities, which is far less useful), but that seems like a formula for success.
Dunn didn’t run from the shared sense after the game that, finally, he had played the way the Bulls hoped when they acquired him in the Jimmy Butler trade:
Kris Dunn showed a sense of humor when asked in the locker room if this was his best NBA game: "I think we can all agree on that," he said. #Bulls
— Mike McGraw (@McGrawDHBulls) November 18, 2017
