Every morning I will take an in-depth look at a game that happened the previous night.  The game that I pick is the one that I think was the best and most interesting one of the night/weekend.

The Bulls have been struggling a ton this year, but for one night, everything clicked.  The Pistons helped them though.  The Pistons shot only 41.3% (33-80 from the field), including only 18.2% from 3 (2-11).  Meanwhile Chicago shot 57.1% (48-84).  The High shooting percentage was due in large part to the points in the paint the Bulls got, as well as the fact the Bulls got a ton of fast break points.

What The Bulls Did Right?

Getting Points In The Paint

Here, the Bulls run a pick and roll involving Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose.  Derrick Rose is going to come off of it,  not hard as if he was going to attack the basket, but he curves it off, giving himself an angle to make a pass on the roll.

The Pistons try to hedge out of this screen, but they don’t do a good job of it.  If the defender hedging is going to come out this far, he needs to turn the point guard around.  Here, Rose is able to get around the defender, and now the Pistons are in a tough spot.

The Piston covering Tyrus Thomas is in the toughest spot.  He sees Noah rolling uncontested (due to the poor hedge), but if he leaves to help out on Noah, he doesn’t know if anyone has his back, rotating over to cover Thomas.  Rose gave himself a good enough angle to make either pass.  A big key.

The defender chooses to stay with Thomas, and Derrick Rose threads the needle with a pass to Joakim Noah, leading to a big time dunk.

Getting Out On The Break

Coming off of a screen, Rip Hamilton gets trapped on the sideline when Joakim Noah hedges out hard on the screen (this is how you do it by the way, completely knocking the ball handler off of his path).

Noah’s active hands knocks the ball loose, and he quickly gains possession.

As Noah dribbles to gain possession, the Bulls now have a 4 on 2 fast break, with no Detroit Pistons past their own foul line.  In fact, one Piston seems to be walking back on defense as the Bulls take the ball on the break.

Noah gets the ball to a guard’s hand (Hinrich), and in this camera angle, there are no Pistons getting back on defense.

Hinrich passes it to Rose as the rest of the Pistons chug along, at least pretending to hustle.

Rose makes the 4th pass of the fast break (which was allowed to happen since they had 5 seconds of a 4 on 2 fast break), and Deng finishes with the lay-up.

What The Pistons Did Wrong?

Poor Offense/Shot Selection

After bringing the ball up, Rodney Stuckey swings the ball to Rip Hamilton.  Take note of the shot clock up top.  There is 19 seconds left on it.

Hamilton, after surveying the situation for a second or two, swings the ball to Jonas Jerebko, who is out on the wing, beyond the three point line.

Jonas Jerebko tries to enter the ball into the post, but Deng is playing off of him, effectively cutting off any lanes to get the entry post in there.

Jerebko then swings the ball back out to Rip Hamilton.

Rip Hamilton points to Ben Wallace, calling for a screen.

He gets it and tries to use it, but the Bulls defend it perfectly (again), because of that, Rip Hamilton is forced to dribble the ball back towards the right wing.

He then swings the ball to Jonas Jerebko who takes an ill-advised three pointer.  Jerebko has played pretty well this year, but he isn’t a three point shooter.  He is shooting 25.5% from 3 on the year including a big fat 0% over the last 5 games.  So why did he take the shot then?  Well, the Pistons basically spent 12 seconds passing the ball around the perimeter.  The ball did not spend one second/bounce inside the three point line, so when Jonas Jerebko got a open look, he must have thought “well, nothing is really going on, so I might as well shoot it.”

This is sad.  I remember the Pistons offense of the last decade where they would run Rip Hamilton off a ton of screens, and get him open mid-range jumpers at will.  What happened to that?  They are now resorting to just swinging the ball around and seeing what happens.