3. Chicago Bulls 85 – Oklahoma City Thunder 98
Date: 1/4/10
CHI at-rim: (24 – 53), 45.3 percent, 29 missed
The Bulls missed more shots at the rim than the normal team attempts on any given night. Just stunning. Granted, when you take a league-high 53 shots at the basket, you’re gonna miss your fair share. The Bulls were assisted on only 9 of their 24 field goals there so most of them likely came off of penetration and offensive rebounds. The Thunder only blocked 9 of the 29 misses which leaves 20 that were straight up errant. As I noted earlier this year when I profiled the Thunder, they allow a ton of shots at the basket but teams find little success in actually converting the chip-ins. This game serves as a microcosm of the Thunder squad.
via Hoopdata – The Missed Bucket List: The 5 Worst Performances At the Rim.
HoopData runs down the worst at-rim performances of the season. And the Bulls are popular attendees.
Can you really be successful if you don’t convert at the rim? Should the Bulls consider that before they go trading for a wing?
You can’t really look at Noah and believe he’s going to evolve into someone you can give the ball to and expect him to score consistently. That’s no knock on Noah. He’s doing everything else so well this season, if he had low-post back-to-basket moves he’d be a top flight player in this league. But Brad Miller’s the other heavy-rotation big and he loathes the paint and loves the top of the key, while Taj Gibson’s too measley to make an impact (and he’s inefficient).
The Bulls need a substantial makeover, and it’s going to take more than just one big free agent to fix it if they want to contend for a title… whenever the Lakers get done pwning everyone.
