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Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah are still trying to find their place on the Bulls
In a game that’s getting smaller and smaller, the Chicago Bulls have a big man problem.
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Joakim Noah looked awful – as in, “should not be playing basketball at this level”-awful, offensively in a loss to the Golden State Warriors on Friday. Center Pau Gasol looked like a man out of time, pushed to the fringes on offense by Draymond Green, a step-slow defensively on the other side of the court.
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Now, those championship Warriors have a way of making NBA teams look like this, but rarely do the list of GSW’s vanquished take to the media to soberly discuss what’s going wrong. For Chicago, it started with a frustrated Pau Gasol following the contest, from K.C. Johnson at the Chicago Tribune:
"When they go small, they have an advantage on the other end because they spread the floor. But then you have to punish them on offense, make them pay for going small," Gasol said. "That's what we didn't do. That's the balance between our outside and inside game. You have to play to the strength of your players. If you don't do that, you're not being very smart."
[…]
"I'd like to see more action in the paint myself and get better rhythm shots from outside," Gasol said. "But we're all trying to figure things out.
"There are plays that can be called but we don't call them enough. We have to work on getting that balance because I think it will help everyone."
Visited with Pau. Trying to be patient, but he wants the ball more in the post to "maximize my skills and also for the benefit of the team."
— KEVIN DING (@KevinDing) November 21, 2015
Gasol managed 14 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the loss, but his best contributions came in the first half, and the Bulls were unable to get him into the ball consistently against Green in the second half. One wonders if they even should have tried. Gasol remains a fantastic low post player, but Green’s statistics in defending the low post this season (or any area of the court in any style this season, if we’re honest, the guy is amazing) have been spectacular.
Then again, Gasol isn’t exactly looking to turn ten second half low post touches into ten second half low post shots – he just wonders if Chicago’s lacking offense (ranked fifth-worst in the NBA after 12 games) wouldn’t be better served swinging the ball inside before tossing it back out.
Gasol starts, alongside second-year forward Nikola Mirotic. Mirotic played well in the season’s first three games and on Friday (18 points on 17 shots, ten rebounds, five assists), but overall he has had a rough year – shooting 36 percent from the floor and 31 percent from long range. His spot in the lineup was occupied by Joakim Noah last year, who despite some sound work on both ends as Chicago’s best rebounder, has looked absolutely miserable in all other areas this season.
Noah knows as much. From ESPN Chicago:
"I just got to be more aggressive. I got to be more aggressive offensively and look for my opportunities. Right now, I'm just not really sure where I can get them, but when they come I have to be ready and I have to be ready to score."
[…]
"I guess be more aggressive," Noah said when asked what he needs to do to get back on track. "It's just frustrating right now, not being able to help the team win tonight. Disappointing. But just come back next game, just do better."
Noah’s passing, which helped turn a (mostly) Derrick Rose-less 2013-14 outfit into one of the NBA’s great surprises that season, just isn’t making the impact it used to. Bulls rookie coach Fred Hoiberg, straight from Iowa State, is trying to adapt on the fly:
“[Noah] made a couple good backdoor passes. Those are the type of plays that Jo can make from out on the top of the floor,” Hoiberg said. “But you have to have movement. If he gets the ball up top, you can’t be stationary. You can’t stand still. That’s with all players but especially with our big guys. You can’t stand and allow them to load on the guy in the middle of the floor.”
It’s been just 18 months since Noah earned All-NBA honors for that passing, but this isn’t the same league, and Noah isn’t the same player. Defenders weren’t hanging all over Joakim at the high or pinch post as if here Jack Sikma, fearful of his tornado jumper, but he was at least taking (and making) that jumper. With no confidence in that shot, opponents have backed off of Noah to a ridiculous degree.
For several possessions in the Warriors loss Noah was stuck without a live dribble several feet behind the three-point line while Draymond Green camped out 13 feet away at the free throw stripe, with the Warriors overplaying on cutters and Chicago essentially playing four-on-five. Sadly, Noah looked like the kid you wouldn’t trust to dribble the ball in junior high ball, as teammates had to come up to accept the dribble hand-off and start a possession deep into the shot clock.
Three years after shooting 44 percent from 10-through-16 feet, Noah hasn’t attempted a shot from that range all season, and he’s shooting 31 percent overall. Hoiberg can’t completely bench him as replacements Mirotic and Taj Gibson are sub-par rebounders, and the 35-year old Gasol needs extended minutes off.
The Bulls have not played good offensive basketball with Gasol on the floor, mind you, and the hope that consistent dump-offs into the post will result in Bill Walton or triangle offense-styled passes to teammates is a little anachronistic. This isn’t a league full of “how’d they do that?”-defenders anymore.
This is what Fred Hoiberg is trying to change:
“The big thing is if you cut and move and screen and do the unselfish things, that stuff takes care of itself,” said Hoiberg, not speaking of anyone in particular. “With Pau, you give him the ball at the elbow and he can make plays. He’s a very good passer. But we can’t stand. That’s where we need to get better. We’ve made improvements from where we were at the beginning of the season. But it needs to continue to get better.”
One would hope. The easy narratives of the Hoiberg-led Bulls as lacking defenders who are pushing all of their chips into the offensive pile is being ignored by even the laziest of observers (we think; we don’t watch many cable TV chat shows), as the Bulls have had to rely on an All-NBA-level season from Jimmy Butler this year just to either stay competitive at times.
The ball isn’t moving, the spacing isn’t there, the stretch power forward is missing nearly 70 percent of his three-pointers, Derrick Rose’s legs still hurt, and the team’s two prideful 7-footers are wondering what, exactly, is going wrong.
Welcome back to the NBA, Fred Hoiberg.
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is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
