Good News, Bad News

This is how deep the Bulls are at guard—last night, the second-string backcourt totaled 43 points and twelve assists. Oh, and they still lost. Tre Jones and Kevin Huerter played in place of Coby White—yet to play this season due to a calf injury—and Josh Giddey, who sprained his right ankle Sunday against the Cavs. In their place, Jones/Huerter helped build a 114-111 lead over the visiting Spurs with just over a minute left in the game. Enter three-point giant Victor Wembanyama. Over the next 33 seconds, that incredibly long drink of water (7’4”) sank two three-pointers and down went the Bulls 121-117. It was a game they could’ve won, even shorthanded had everyone done their job. Instead, Nikola Vucevic reverted to his 35-year old self, managing a sad eleven points while trying to guard Wembanyama; backup center Jalen Smith played 21 minutes to Vucevic’s 28 while managing the same number of points (eleven) and four more rebounds (twelve to four). Wembanyama poured in 38 points with six three-pointers out of nine attempted. The less said about the play of Isaac Okoro and Patrick Williams, the better. Let’s go with the glass half-full here. White is due back any game now, and Giddey’s injury looks to be minor. Next up is the Pistons tomorrow. In a lot of ways, it qualifies as the most important game of the young seasons for this young team.

More Lucky Than Good

For the best part of three quarters yesterday, Giants’ rookie quaterback Jaxson Dart had the Soldier Field faithful on edge. A raw, damp Sunday—Bears’ weather, or so we like to think—had no discernible effect on the 22-year old, who ran for two touchdowns and looked well on his way to handing the 5-3 Bears their fourth loss of the season, this one to a 2-7 team. Then Dart fumbled away the ball with just over five minutes left in the third quarter. If he didn’t suffer a concussion a few plays before that, he did then, and in came Russell Wilson to replace him. The Bears’ defense looked clueless against Dart, who threw for 242 yards and rushed for another 66. Those stats were food for a 17-7 lead, which eventually grew to 20-7 under Wilson before momentum shifted. Credit the Bears for waking up or blame Wilson for trying to play well beyond his expiration date. Either way, the Munsters scored two touchdown with under four minutes remaining to win, 24-20. And to think ex-GM Ryan Pace was hot for Wilson back in 2021. Bears’ second-year quarterback Caleb Williams threw for one touchdown and scored another to fuel the comeback. What struck me, though, was Williams’ inability to do much against one of the worst defenses in the league. In Williams’ defense, sort of, Dart kept him off the field for long stretches as he frustrated Bears’ defenders. Watch me run, guys. So, everything fell into place and the home team didn’t suffer an embarrassing upset. Yay. And Williams may have been better than his 20 completions and 220 yards gained suggest. For a change of pace, Bears’ receivers came down with a case of the dropsies, letting six catchable passes fall to the ground. Go figure. Basically, I can’t. This is a team that waits to the very end to beat bad teams and has yet to win against a good team. Well, the Eagles; Packers (twice); 49ers; and Lions await. Get back to me at the end of the season. Right now, enjoy.

Like I Said

The Bulls dominated the first half against the Cavaliers last night, and the Cavaliers dominated the second half. Guess who won? The team with the star, as in guard Donovan Mitchell, who scored thirteen of his 29 points in the—wait for it—fourth quarter. Cavs 128 Bulls 122. Matas Buzelis (four points) and Nikola Vucevic (nine points) both had off nights, which can’t happen when you go up against a player like Mitchell. Maybe things will get better when Coby White is cleared to play, but it won’t happen tomorrow. That’s when Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs come to town.

What I Feared

On Tuesday, the Bulls were able to handle Joel Embiid, still recovering from knee surgery. But a healthy Giannis Antetokounmpo? Not when it counted. Last night in Milwaukee, the Bulls made a game of it for three quarters and were only down at the start of the fourth. Enter Antetokounmpo, who scored nineteen of his 41 points in the final frame. If Billy Donovan had a answer to the Bucks’ biggest weapon for 36 minutes, he lost it in the final twelve. Milwaukee 126 Chicago 110. The Bucks may not be a great team, but they have a great player, and in the NBA, great players can elevate the people around them (see Jordan, Michael). The Bulls are a team comprised of good and a few very good players. They’re deep, but they can’t dominate in crunch time the way Antetokounmpo did last night. That, I fear, will be an ongoing problem. Let’s see how Donovan and company respond.

Discussion

How many fathers get a call from their adult daughters to discuss the new White Sox pitching coach? I did, and we talked for a good ten minutes. Neither of us was very excited. Throw in the new hitting coach, and we were even less than that. New pitching coach Zach Bove played first base in college before serving as a hitting coach on the high school and college levels. Oh, let me count the ways this doesn’t impress—no apparent minor-league career even, not a catcher serving as a pitching coach but a former college infielder instructing major-league pitchers how to do their jobs. Somewhere, Johnny Sain spins in his grave. And maybe the late Bill Robinson with the hiring of Derek Shomon as the new Sox hitting coach. According to baseball-reference.com, Shomon had cups of coffee with two independent-league teams. I can just see Shomon telling Sox hitters in spring training, Do as I wish I’d done, guys, not what I did (career .115 BA in 26 at-bats). Bleh. Clare had a nice guy of a hitting coach from eighth grade on and off through college. He wasn’t big on gizmos (though I definitely see the benefit of taping at-bats in order to analyze a hitter’s approach to different types of pitches). Instead, he was big on “envisioning” what a hitter wanted to accomplish in a particular situation. It worked to the extent my daughter still holds a number of hitting records at Elmhurst University. I asked Clare something: “What if Jessica Mendoza had been your hitting coach?” I could practically hear her eyes growing wide at the thought.

Oh, Ye of Little Faith

Usually, I check the score of a Bulls’ game just before the half and again midway through the third quarter. There was nothing I saw last night to suggest the game would go Chicago’s way. A halftime nineteen-point deficit to Joel Embiid and the 76ers usually doesn’t end well, or it hasn’t in recent years. Oh, ye of little faith. Imagine my surprise to find out on the WGN sports’ segment that Nikola Vucevic sank a three-pointer with seventeen seconds left on the clock to give his team its first lead on the night as well as the win, 113-111. Huh? Part of the reason I quit watching was Josh Giddey looked totally out of sync; he kept passing the ball, instead of shooting. Or so it looked during my two peaks. For the game, though, Giddey matched a feat, with back-to-back triple-doubles, last done by a Bull when Michael Jordan managed it back in 1989. On the night, Giddey scored 29 points with fifteen rebounds and twelve assists, the last one setting up Vuvevic for his game winner. Not that I saw it live. The 76ers came in tied with the Bulls for the best record in the Eastern Conference. Sorry, guys, but Philly is now truly second-best. As for the Bulls, they’re 6-1, even though Coby White has yet to take the floor this season and Ayo Dosunmu missed a second straight game with a quad injury. Maybe January won’t be so grim after all.

One and Done

Well, no way were the Bulls going to run the season schedule. Still, it would’ve been nice to beat the Knicks in Manhattan Mecca Sunday night. But with Ayo Dosunmu out nursing a quad injury, Billy Donovan’s crew lost 128-116. Their record now stands at 5-1. This is where it starts to get real. The Bulls’ next three games are with the 76ers, Cavaliers and Bucks. The gauntlet doesn’t end there, not with Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs coming to town next Monday. If they come out of that stretch over .500, we can talk.