3 BIG Things from Bulls-Thunder: Boylen’s offense continues to baffle

The Bulls fell 121–96 on Monday night in OKC, as the Bulls continue to lack an offensive identity under Jim Boylen

In the Bulls 121–96 loss to the Thunder in Oklahoma City, three things immediately stood out. Chicago’s offensive woes on Monday night can obviously be (partly) attributed to being with leading scorer Zach LaVine, who has carried a heavy scoring load all year. But after sifting through the numbers, it is clear that the Bulls will continue to be one of the worst offenses in the league until Boylen and his staff re-evaluate their playing style.

1. Wendell Carter Jr. is being marginalized

Against the Thunder on Monday night, Carter finished with 8 points on 4/8 shooting in 19 minutes played.

The first issue here is 19 minutes?! There is no way the №7 overall pick should ever play less than 28 minutes for the Bulls unless he fouled out to prevent this. He did pick up five fouls in the game, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed Carter’s weird minutes distribution.

Carter had the best +/- rating among the Chicago starters on the night — albeit a (-13 )— and looked nice rolling to the rim when the Bulls used shooters like Markkanen and Justin Holiday to draw attention from the help defense:

On top of Carter not playing enough in OKC, when he did play, he only took one 3-point shot. Part of the appeal of taking Carter at №7 in the 2018 draft was that his perimeter jump shot could stretch out to 3-point range. He shot 41.3 percent on 46 attempts from 3-point range at Duke, which was about 1.2 attempts from 3 per game.

And this year Carter started off shooting 33 percent from 3-point range in October on one attempt per game, 13 percent on one 3-point attempt per game in November and finally, he has yet to make a 3-pointer with Boylen as his coach.

If Boylen is instructing Carter to ignore offense and focus strictly on being a rim-protector, so be it. An excellent defense-first big man with complementary offensive skills is what Chicago needs long-term anyway. But Carter is struggling mightily, shooting a very low (for a big man) 61 percent on his shots at the rim. As he works on improving his finishing (and strength), Boylen needs to empower him to take the 3-point shot, specifically the “trail 3-pointer”.

Carter is one of the better defensive rebounders on the team. The Bulls are missing out on golden opportunities for easy offense, as it is simple as having Carter quickly pick-and-pop in semi-transition. This would open up more driving lanes for Dunn and co. as Carter develops confidence in that shot. Just for reference, Carter is currently shooting 78 percent from the free throw line.

2. Jim Boylen has the Bulls focusing on elaborate offense, without any real reason

This what a routine Bulls offensive possession looks like under Jim Boylen:

Dunn-Carter pick-and-roll gets no separation for Dunn, chaos ensues.

Ball swings around from Dunn to Carter and back as Carter sets a flare or pin down screen for a shooter, if no open looks are generated, chaos ensues.

The Bulls have struggled to generate great looks all year and they have struggled to convert those looks when they get them. And under Boylen the offense hasn’t had any flow into secondary actions if they initial motion is stopped.

Playing slow if fine but this team is so short on efficient offense that it might make sense to aggressively seek out transitions opportunities, especially on nights where LaVine is out.

Chicago has been shooting late in the shot clock, oftentimes after generating little separation on their off-ball cuts. And when they get a big-small mismatch, there are many instances where they ignore it in favor of a random spot-up shot elsewhere.

Under Boylen, the Bulls have traded shots late in the shot clock for shots very late in the shot clock. In fact, the Bulls are leading the league in shots very late in the shot clock (0–4 seconds on the clock) since Boylen has taken over.

The biggest issue with Boylen’s offense so far is that having the players worry about playing a slow, elaborate brand of offensive basketball should result in a low turnover rate. Instead, the Bulls have had a whopping 19.4 turnovers per game under Boylen, about 4 turnovers worse than their season average. On top of this, he has the team focusing less on shooting 3-pointers.

Since he has taken over, the Bulls have been worse in points in the paint, free throw attempts and have had the same field goal percentage.

3. The Bulls need to go after more offensive rebounds

Chicago’s offensive rebounding rate is dead-last in the NBA. And it would be safe to assume that Jim Boylen prefers it this way. As a defensive-minded coach, giving up fastbreak points drives Boylen mad. And fittingly, the Bulls have been in the middle of the pack this season in fastbreak defense.

On Monday night Chicago racked up 13 offensive boards, a figure that would tie the Thunder for tops in the league if it was their season average. They were led by Lauri Markkanen who had seven offensive rebounds on his own.

Since the Bulls aren’t anywhere near great in transition defense, it wouldn’t kill them to go after more offensive rebounds.

This team has a recurring theme of not having all their best offensive players healthy at the same time. And with players like Shaq Harrison and Ryan Arcidiacono filling in the gaps, it is unfair to expect this Bulls team to be above-average on offense.

However, going after more second-chance points would relieve the pressure on these replacement-level players to act as sufficient complementary pieces (scoring-wise).

Chicago’s 9.5 second-chance points per game is perhaps the best figure to point to the ineptitude of the offense. This team is at a deficit most nights from a talent standpoint and they aren’t generating free throw or 3-point attempts at a high enough rate. But all of that would be a moot point if this team was getting after it on the offensive glass.

Boylen’s counter to this would — as mentioned above — be that he rather have the Bulls give on the offensive glass and get back in transition D.

But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Boylen can designate specific players to pressure the opponent’s ball-handler to slow down transition attacks after the Bulls go for offensive boards. He could also designate specific players to crash the glass outside of the big men. Chandler Hutchison and Harrison (specifically) have posted excellent offensive rebound rates for their respective position groups. If given the freedom to attack the offensive glass, these two — along with everyone else on the roster — could help boost the Bulls prehistoric offensive rating a few points.