How did the Bulls guard Giannis, and will it work in the playoffs?
Giannis filled the box score with 30 points on 11-of-23 shooting, but there are some positives to take away from the way the Bulls were able to make him work and shoot below his season average
Usually it can be tough to make a case for a moral victory following a loss in a big game. But for the short-handed Bulls, who fell 94-90 to the Bucks on Friday night, there were some very good things to take away from the game.
It was the Bulls’ first meeting against the Bucks, and the 6-foot-11 question looming on everyone’s mind was if they had anyone on the roster capable of matching up on Giannis Antetokounmpo. He did score 30 points on 11-of-23 shooting, but the Bulls held the Bucks to a 98.9 offensive rating, which was their seventh-lowest output of the entire season. Considering the Bulls defense has fallen off a cliff in recent weeks, it’s worth looking into how they got back on track against Giannis, and what it revealed about what could happen in the playoffs.
General strategy
Look, every team needs a guy that can shut down Giannis. Truth is, there is no single defender in the league that is going to shut down Giannis consistently one-on-one. In order to defend him, you have to employ one of two strategies: let him score and try to take away the shooters around him or pack the paint and hope those shooters miss.
The Bulls clearly opted for the latter on Friday, as the great Half Court Hoops twitter account laid out. They tried to shrink the floor by bringing a lot of help at the boxes and elbows. Or in layman’s terms, they kept their whole team within an arm’s length of the paint to help if Giannis snuck in there.
You can see pretty easily why the Bulls went with this strategy. Giannis killed them whenever he got shots off in the paint, mostly off transition, rebounds, and rolls to the basket. When they kept him out of the paint, he struggled.
The Bulls did a pretty good job with this strategy. They also brought a lot of pressure whenever he had the ball with a variety of digs, stunts, and doubles.
Along with a good team strategy, the individual defenders on the Bulls also performed reasonably well.
Tyler Cook
Cook came back from a nine-game injury absence, drawing the starting assignment on Giannis and acquitted himself well. He is a big boy. Athletic, long, strong and sturdy.
Individually, Cook showed signs of stepping in as the big-wing defender the Bulls desperately need on their roster. When the double came from the baseline, he forced Giannis toward help and was able to move his feet quick enough to prevent him from turning the corner.
It got tricky with Giannis operating as the roll man and in dribble-handoff. He’s just too big, too strong, too fast and too good to stop.
Cook is forced to help contain the ball handler, and especially on these empty side rolls where there is no one to ‘tag’ the roller, it’s difficult to get a body in between Giannis and the rim in time. If defending Giannis is a full team effort, then everyone needs to be executing their rotations perfectly to take away the easiest looks.
All things considered, Cook was awesome. He showed poise and patience despite the early fouls and has definitely earned some more regular action, especially against the Giannis’ of the world.
Nikola Vucevic
Without Brook Lopez for most of this year, Giannis has been playing a lot of center minutes. He’s a mismatch at any position, but it’s smart for Milwaukee to surround Giannis with shooters and force lumbering bigs to defend him on the perimeter.
I can’t speak for Giannis, but I imagine it’s pretty exhausting to put your head down and go at the rim every single time down the floor. Vucevic is a big enough body that it probably enticed Giannis into a few more face up and fadeaways than he would normally take during a close playoff-type game, let’s say. Especially with 8 other Bulls feet in the paint.
Between Vucevic and Cook, the Bulls had a couple of big bodied options to mix things up with Giannis and keep him guessing throughout the course of the game.
Alex Caruso
Even after a mauling at the rim by Grayson Allen, Billy Donovan saved his secret weapon for the end of the game. At the start of the fourth quarter, the 6-foot-4, broken-wristed Caruso got his shot at guarding 6-foot-11 Giannis. Caruso is no stranger to taking on these kinds of assignments—he guarded Kevin Love in the team’s previous game and has guarded bigger players throughout the season.
Caruso did a pretty good job on Giannis. When guarding post-ups on an island, Caruso contested his fadeaways well and forced misses. On another post-up, he somehow unbelievably blocked Giannis and forced a jump ball.
Caruso guarded Giannis a lot better than you’d expect. Or maybe exactly how you’d expect. That probably won’t work over the course of an entire game, but he was a good change of pace to give Giannis a different look.
News came out the next day that the fall Caruso sustained resulted in a broken wrist that will require 6-8 weeks of recovery following surgery. He did all this with a broken wrist!
Caruso is an absolute badass and he needs to be healthy (along with Lonzo Ball, Zach LaVine, Derrick Jones Jr., *takes a deep breath and continues reading the list* Javonte Green and Patrick Williams) for the Bulls to truly be able to compete against the league’s elite, because there is only so much you can do against someone like Giannis.
He will settle for the occasional three or mid-post fade, but is able to barrel his way into the restricted area at will. His shot chart against the Bulls looks identical to the shots he has gotten all season long.
At the end of the day, the Bulls benefitted from some luck, timely misses and poor shot selection but the bigger key to holding the Bucks to such a poor offensive night was the miserable shooting around Giannis. The Bucks are 4th in 3-pointers attempted per game (39.4) and seventh in percentage (35.9).
Against the Bulls, they were 6-of-31…19.4 percent.
Sprinkle in a few more early makes and the driving lanes get just a little bit wider and the Bucks make the Bulls pay even more for how aggressively they packed the paint.
Of course, there are always what ifs—Bulls somehow shot even worse from deep than the Bucks and were missing half their roster.
The strategy and execution in this game brings up the question of whether the Bulls should make a move to bring in another body to throw at Giannis—someone who can serve as that first line of defense at certain times, and be a reliable helper at others. Does it embolden your stance that the Bulls should be looking for more help?
Do you think a lower-level trade target like Torrey Craig, Larry Nance or Nic Batum would be an equally useful option without having to mortgage the future? Maybe the injury status of the team pushes your opinion one way or the other. I’d love to hear your thoughts about whether this game sways your opinion one way or another about what the Bulls should do at the trade deadline.
No matter if/who they bring in, the Bulls, like every other team in the NBA, won’t be able to stop Giannis. Even short-handed, they showed they are capable of making life difficult for him and that’s a good sign for any potential playoff matchup, especially for a banged up team who’s still forging their defensive identity.
Note: This piece was written in collaboration with Stephen Noh of The Sporting News.