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Good win on the road. Have the Bulls found their backcourt of the future now, with Ayo and Coby?

Caught the 4th quarter.

Good win. Great job for maintaining the lead and closing it out. Pels really pressured us in the 4th, they played good defense and hit their shots. But our guys was able to matched that up.

Not a good shooting night overall from Coby. But he hit a couple of key baskets in the clutch. That offensive rebound putback and the 3 off Demar's pass.

Ayo continues to solidify himself as more than just a glue for the starting lineup. I think he truly deserves the credit for keeping this team stays afloat other than Coby. Not enough, but he's produced more than expected to make up for the loss of Zach, Pat, Craig.

To me it's clear that Demar is actively trying to share the clutch duty with Coby. I think overall it's been going well, better than earlier in the year. Clutch 3 by Demar.

Here's the rant part, and of course it involves Vuc. I think he has a bit of focus problem. He was involved in 2 almost costly turnovers in the clutch. One is when he's standing at the left three point line elbow, Demar passed him the ball but there's miscommunication between them and resulted in out of bound turnover. The other one is when received a pass at the top of the key from the Demar (I think), he fumbled it threw an imbalance shot at the rim, but luckily Demar was able to grab the rebound and shot that clutch 3. Being a veteran Vuc need not to be the weakest link mentally. I got the same feeling from that Cavs game when Vuc and Coby fumbled that last play.

But this is a good win against top 10 teams. It's just that the current level of expectation is that this should be the norm. Because that's how the FO sees it.

Pelicans were 8-2 in their last 10 playing the Bulls at home.

Please miss me with trying to discredit this win due to the Pelicans being shorthanded as if we're not missing 4 starters/rotation players.

DeRozan and Ayo were great.

Dalen Terry being a +17 is pretty eye-popping

Very confused how Phillips played the most minutes off the bench in the last game, played well, then only played about 1:30 tonight.

DeMar playing 40 minutes is concerning, but also what a leader. Guy puts in the work and it shows. Playing at this level, leading the league in minutes, at this age is very very impressive. 25 points on 60.6% TS% with 5 assists over his past 10 games. These are close to his 2nd team all NBA numbers from two seasons ago.

7th in the league in Clutch points, shoots 51% from the field in the clutch (50% from 3 on low low volume).

Give this man the praise and recognition he deserves

That was a great win. They controlled the game against one of the best teams in the league, and got the W on the road nonetheless.

Ayo was exceptional. His offensive game really has taken a couple steps forward this year, and nobody saw that coming at all after the season he had.

21p 8a 3r 3s
3-6 from 3
Unstoppable in transition
Terrific defense. Pretty sure he was responsible for a couple of Ingram's 9 turnovers

Coby didn't have his usual game, but being defended by Herb Jones is gonna do that to you.

Vooch posted an almost identical efficient statline his last two games.

Having 4 guys who can post 15+ points a night is nice. I like the shot distribution overall. The ball was being shared (29 assists), and not one player was hogging it with every starter taking at least 13 shots.

Ayo become a knockdown 3 point shooter definitely was not on my bingo card. Same for Caruso. This shooting coach is working wonders on everyone but Vuc!

A shoutout to Brandon Ingram. 9 turnovers by himself, when the Bulls as a team had 9. That's quite remarkable. He and Ayo get game balls.

Ice Man wrote:A shoutout to Brandon Ingram. 9 turnovers by himself, when the Bulls as a team had 9. That's quite remarkable. He and Ayo get game balls.

To be fair, Ingram and Zion took on most of McCollum's PG duties last night. We probably lose that game with him playing, but that's the NBA at this point of the season.

Random thought on Ayo, but if memory serves me right, he played really well 2 years ago (as a rookie), exactly during this Feb/March Madness stretch. Coby and he held down the fort pretty well while Zach, Lonzo and Caruso were out.

Wonder what was the root cause of Ayo's really bad offensive season, last year. Changes to his shooting form? Pressures of expectations, scouting reports, contract year, etc.? Team chemistry? The starting move to PG?

Anyway, his efficiency and percentages are modestly trending up. Hope he can ride this momentum to the end of the season.

As far as the Pelicans go... Not that they should complain, we're missing most of a starting lineup, but they did miss their depth chart. Besides that, Ingram's gotta be in that Zach/D'Lo category of up-and-down/empty calorie all-star. Fills the fantasy stats, but imposes no will on the game. IMO they should move on from him and keep trying to help Zion.

R3AL1TY wrote:Well, one thing good to take from this season is both Coby and Ayo being most improved type players.

As bad as AKME are, they absolutely knocked the Coby and Ayo situations and deals out of the park.

MrSparkle wrote:Random thought on Ayo, but if memory serves me right, he played really well 2 years ago (as a rookie), exactly during this Feb/March Madness stretch. Coby and he held down the fort pretty well while Zach, Lonzo and Caruso were out.

Wonder what was the root cause of Ayo's really bad offensive season, last year. Changes to his shooting form? Pressures of expectations, scouting reports, contract year, etc.? Team chemistry? The starting move to PG?

Anyway, his efficiency and percentages are modestly trending up. Hope he can ride this momentum to the end of the season.

As far as the Pelicans go... Not that they should complain, we're missing most of a starting lineup, but they did miss their depth chart. Besides that, Ingram's gotta be in that Zach/D'Lo category of up-and-down/empty calorie all-star. Fills the fantasy stats, but imposes no will on the game. IMO they should move on from him and keep trying to help Zion.

IMO, I think like many young players, it was a confidence/deference thing. I think last season, playing PG was a problem because the big 3 take so much of the offensive responsibility that he was hesistant to be aggressive (sorta the same deal with Coby). Ayo's game coming into this year was heavily predicated on him attacking the rim in transition. His 3pt work has added value to his game in the halfcourt instead of being a pitch-back machine. Couple that with shots being much more available with Zach out, and his emergence has been easier.

I still contend that removing Vuc from the starting line-up would help us even more.

sco wrote:

MrSparkle wrote:Random thought on Ayo, but if memory serves me right, he played really well 2 years ago (as a rookie), exactly during this Feb/March Madness stretch. Coby and he held down the fort pretty well while Zach, Lonzo and Caruso were out.

Wonder what was the root cause of Ayo's really bad offensive season, last year. Changes to his shooting form? Pressures of expectations, scouting reports, contract year, etc.? Team chemistry? The starting move to PG?

Anyway, his efficiency and percentages are modestly trending up. Hope he can ride this momentum to the end of the season.

As far as the Pelicans go... Not that they should complain, we're missing most of a starting lineup, but they did miss their depth chart. Besides that, Ingram's gotta be in that Zach/D'Lo category of up-and-down/empty calorie all-star. Fills the fantasy stats, but imposes no will on the game. IMO they should move on from him and keep trying to help Zion.

IMO, I think like many young players, it was a confidence/deference thing. I think last season, playing PG was a problem because the big 3 take so much of the offensive responsibility that he was hesistant to be aggressive (sorta the same deal with Coby). Ayo's game coming into this year was heavily predicated on him attacking the rim in transition. His 3pt work has added value to his game in the halfcourt instead of being a pitch-back machine. Couple that with shots being much more available with Zach out, and his emergence has been easier.

I still contend that removing Vuc from the starting line-up would help us even more.

Yea - I've been high on dumping Vuc from the starting lineup. He'd make a nice 6th man.

Billy mostly runs rotation minutes by salary numbers, though.

Pelicans should have had this one. Zion and Ingram should have had 35 apiece, just get in the post, 2 points every time and pile up fouls and 3 pt plays. This one was a NOLA gift.

That should be almost every team's way to play the Bulls. When Stacey 'the Apologist' King keeps saying how the Bulls need to double team to help the guard guarding a PF he fails to believe that even if they do rotate in the lane they're still undersized so when that double team comes if the guy passes out of it the 2nd pass leads to a wide open layup. There's just no way to make up the 60 pounds that Zion has on anybody on the Bulls or the 4 inches Ingram has on whoever guards him.

Dan Z wrote:

DASMACKDOWN wrote:Are the minutes finally catching up to Coby?

Probably, but he's always been streaky.

Plus, nobody expected him to have the year that he's having. It's a new situation for him.

The last two games he has been guarded by defensive studs.

ChettheJet wrote:Pelicans should have had this one. Zion and Ingram should have had 35 apiece, just get in the post, 2 points every time and pile up fouls and 3 pt plays. This one was a NOLA gift.

That should be almost every team's way to play the Bulls. When Stacey 'the Apologist' King keeps saying how the Bulls need to double team to help the guard guarding a PF he fails to believe that even if they do rotate in the lane they're still undersized so when that double team comes if the guy passes out of it the 2nd pass leads to a wide open layup. There's just no way to make up the 60 pounds that Zion has on anybody on the Bulls or the 4 inches Ingram has on whoever guards him.

Why does your post read like we lost the game? It's sad we can't ever be happy when we win

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MrSparkle wrote:Random thought on Ayo, but if memory serves me right, he played really well 2 years ago (as a rookie), exactly during this Feb/March Madness stretch. Coby and he held down the fort pretty well while Zach, Lonzo and Caruso were out.

Wonder what was the root cause of Ayo's really bad offensive season, last year. Changes to his shooting form? Pressures of expectations, scouting reports, contract year, etc.? Team chemistry? The starting move to PG?

I cant remember where I saw it but it was like a year or so ago, but a coach had said Ayo is one of the most resilient players he knows. He didn't worry about Ayo last seasons for us because at Illinois, the same situation happened. He had a great freshman year, then by most accounts, took a step back in his second year. When people counted him out, he exploded in his 3rd season for the Illini.

Essentially, he is a fighter. When people count him out, he seems to get even better.

He is doing the same thing now for the Bulls.

DuckIII wrote:

R3AL1TY wrote:Well, one thing good to take from this season is both Coby and Ayo being most improved type players.

As bad as AKME are, they absolutely knocked the Coby and Ayo situations and deals out of the park.

True. That's the one thing that stuns me. I figured Coby would be resigned to a ridiculous contract-- kind of like what Vuce got-- at like $20 mil per season. I also figured Ayo would ride the line between 12th man to maybe 10th so by my estimation-- and hopefully I wasn't the only one-- I thought at the start of this year that Ayo was overpaid at $7 mil per season. Instead, we have Coby at $13 mil per year-- a massive value, and Ayo at a $7 mil as a key spark plug as a 6th or 7th man at minimum. Love it!

BullChit wrote:

R3AL1TY wrote:Well, one thing good to take from this season is both Coby and Ayo being most improved type players.

The best thing AK has done was re-signing both Coby and Ayo when we were all convinced one of them had to go.

“…when SOME of us were convinced one of them had to go.”

Had to fix it for you

Stratmaster wrote:

Charlesareed wrote:

BullChit wrote:
The best thing AK has done was re-signing both Coby and Ayo when we were all convinced one of them had to go.

Zach was the one who needed to go all along I been calling for his head the past 2 seasons he’s a ball hogging no defense play low bbiq checker

Lol. He's still the best guard on the roster. And if he is a chucker... well, Coby says "hold my beer"

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Still the best guard on the roster? Yikes. One of the least movable contracts in the L and a guy who can’t stay healthy throughout his career with a very questionable attitude and lack of leadership skills? I get that Zach at HIS BEST is the best guard on the roster. Sadly he isn’t at his best often, and you have to on the court to be the best as well.

Dengness9 wrote:

BullChit wrote:

R3AL1TY wrote:Well, one thing good to take from this season is both Coby and Ayo being most improved type players.

The best thing AK has done was re-signing both Coby and Ayo when we were all convinced one of them had to go.

“…when SOME of us were convinced one of them had to go.”

Had to fix it for you

As other people have pointed out there was some dumb luck to the Ayo signing. When they drafted Ayo they gave him a two year deal and Marko Simonovic a three year deal. In year two Ayo struggled and then signed his current deal. Had it been a year later (after this season) he'd be looking for more money.

I'm not sure what the market was like for Coby when he was up for a contract extension.

This was a really good win, Pelicans are one of the hottest teams(now 7-3 in their last 10) and they are a big size team. Bulls somehow found a way to beat them using AC as a PF guarding Zion. Great road win.

Bulls are so short handed right now though that no one else can miss games. For example if AC were to get his usual injuries then that would really screw them. Detroit tomorrow night should get another W but they need to play with the same intensity.

If the Bulls are serious about making the playoffs then they need to go on a win streak right now to catch up to the others which are 4.5- 5 games ahead.