If the Chicago Bulls are going to break out of their losing spiral, it starts with taking care of the ball.
This is nothing new for the Bulls, who want to play fast this season but have to do so under control. The first part has been a success as they ranked first in the NBA in pace entering Wednesday night’s game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
But the Bulls can’t stop turning the ball over. Their 16.5 turnovers per game entering Wednesday were the ninth-most in the league, preventing other offensive improvements from translating into wins.
Some teams — such as the Memphis Grizzlies (17.4 turnovers per game) and Minnesota Timberwolves (17.1) — can absorb those mistakes through defensive rigor or sheer star power. But the Bulls don’t have either of those offsetting factors, leaving them to flail on offense when they can’t keep the ball out of their opponents’ hands.
It starts, of course, at the point. When the Bulls acquired point guard Josh Giddey in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder for Alex Caruso, they touted Giddey as a forward-thinking passer who could elevate the offense for years to come with his on-ball facilitation.
That passing prowess has come through in flashes. But it’s also paired with mistakes as Giddey averages 2.7 turnovers per game.
“Obviously we emphasize pace in the way we want to play,” Giddey said. “But it’s also my job to recognize that if we haven’t got a good look in a couple trips down, slow the game, get something good. … Turnovers are a part of the way we want to play, but not the amount that we have.”
After Giddey’s seven-turnover performance in Monday’s loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, coach Billy Donovan had a simple message for his point guard: You’re too good of a passer to be making this many mistakes.
But the issue is pervasive through the roster. Zach LaVine averages the 16th-most turnovers in the league (3.4). Coby White isn’t far behind (2.9).
“Guys can look down at the stat sheet and say, ‘Oh, I only had two turnovers,’” Donovan said. “But if you play nine or 10 guys and everybody has two turnovers, that’s a lot.”
Ayo Dosunmu has developed into the Bulls’ most efficient guard with a 3.1 assist-to-turnover ratio, showing balanced decision-making that has taken another step forward this season. (Lonzo Ball had a 3.7 ratio in limited minutes as he returned from a years-long knee injury before being sidelined again with a sprained wrist.)
But for most of the roster, mistakes have been contagious. So what’s the diagnosis for the Bulls’ ball-protection problem?
It starts with the speed. As the Bulls continue to set the NBA’s fastest pace, they accept that turnovers are a natural byproduct of their new style.
But Donovan noted the turnovers rarely come from wild plays in the open court. The Bulls aren’t coughing up the ball on full-court heaves or transition scrambles — they’re stalling out while attempting to run their half-court offense at a higher tempo.
“We’re playing fast and we’re trying to play fast inside the half court because at times the best thing for us is to get bodies off of us physically,” Donovan said. “But that just requires the guy with the ball in his hands to make good decisions and be sound.”
For players such as LaVine, the situations that lead to these turnovers often feel like “getting stuck.” The Bulls are attempting to build an offense on a simple foundation — get downhill, force the defense to collapse, kick the ball out and feed off the mismatched rotations. But once defenses sniff out this game plan, it becomes all too easy to clutter the paint and goad the Bulls into poor decision-making.
Anthony Edwards gave a brutal summation of the Bulls offense after the Timberwolves made a decisive midgame adjustment to shut off the tap in Thursday’s loss: “All they were doing was dribble, dribble, dribble, handoff. Get downhill, kick, corner trey. We were like: ‘(Forget) that. No help, make them boys finish.’ And they struggled to finish.”
When the Bulls do get stuck, there are few options to bail them out. They get a lot of shots blocked (5.7 per game entering Wednesday, ninth-most in the league), partially because they’re undersized but mostly a result of players attempting to force their way through heavy traffic at the rim.
Turnovers also have ticked up when opponents switch into a zone, which takes away some of the Bulls’ ability to shake off defenders through rapid ball movement or assertive drives to the rim.
LaVine believes the turnovers are often tinged with an extra layer of regret as the Bulls precede those forced drives to the rim with a heavy rotation of passes that could produce better looks.
“Honestly, I think we’re getting the right reads,” LaVine said. “I think we’re overpassing a couple times. We have the shot and then we’ll pass it up and we’ll go into the lane and then we’ll end up turning it over from there or making sloppy plays in the lane where you could have made an easier pass or easier shot.”
The statistics back that up. The Bulls were eighth in the league in assists entering Wednesday (28.1 per game) with nearly 68% of their made baskets coming off assists. That’s why the offense has, at times, looked more dynamic this season as players such as LaVine and White whip passes around the perimeter and rip off 3-pointers.
Giddey pointed to this ability to share the ball as a team strength. And if the offense can temper its mistakes, he believes the Bulls can strike the correct balance between risk-taking and recklessness.
“It’s from a good place,” Giddey said. “We’re an unselfish group. We want to get each other open looks and good shots. We’ve spoken about passing up good shots for great shots. I think sometimes we can be too unselfish and give up good looks, but it’s better than the opposite.”
