Opponent Scouting: Chicago Bulls (20-24)

Today at 3:00pm EST the Detroit Pistons are in Paris, France to face the Chicago Bulls. Special shoutout to all the European Pistons fans I’ve seen absolutely living it up and bringing some wholesome content into our lives. Both teams are on tons of rest and this is the only game all week for both.

The Them:

The Bulls have been a disappointment after having a pretty solid year last season. Some of it is injuries but not all of it, they’ve started to pull themselves together a bit over the past few weeks but they haven’t exactly gone on a huge winning streak. The Bulls have the league’s 18th-ranked offense and 17th-ranked defense, both of which are indicative of their current standing in the league. They clearly do not suck, but there just isn’t a ton they do well as a team.

In case you’ve missed it. Lonzo Ball remains out so he ain’t here.

DeMar DeRozan is a rock for the Bulls. He’s missed the last 3 games but is slotted to make his return today. He is still a romping scorer who is murder in the mid-range while also being effective going to the hoop and still getting to the line a ton. DeRozan has also evolved over the past few years to become a really effective passer as indicated by his team-leading 5 assists per game. DeRozan is still basically a non-shooter from beyond the arc.

Zach LaVine is an electric scorer who hasn’t been quite as good this year but has been better as of late. LaVine is a high volume shooter from deep and hits nearly 39% of them, while also having a killer first step and hops for days to attack the hoop. He’s not a very good passer, though he makes a decent effort to find guys, and isn’t always great at finishing contested looks inside but he can score in bunches and a variety of ways.

Nikola Vucevic is ostensibly the 3rd guy in their big three but it just hasn’t really worked out that way. Vuc is a really good offensive player, averaging 17.5 points and 3 assists per game from the center spot. He shoots the ball well from deep and the midrange, can still get inside, smart player both in his passing and movement off the ball. But he still never draws fouls, is totally overshadowed by DeRozan and LaVine, and he isn’t a good defender. Vuc seems pretty likely to be a classic floor raiser guy at this point. If you plop him on a team without offensive options he instantly makes them better by providing reliable offensive production, but he isn’t a good enough offensive player to anchor a genuinely good offense and his lack of defensive impact means he struggles to fit as a 3rd option. For our purposes though, he’s still a danger offensively and the Pistons are not good enough offensively to shrug off anyone’s defense. Also worth noting last time out Vuc hung 43 on the Warriors sooooooo.

After those three, Patrick Williams is a 3 and D wing who is shooting well from deep if not that often. Ayo Dosunmu plays quite a lot and does most things alright from the off-guard spot but he hasn’t shot very well this season. Alex Caruso is a classic white-guy guard, and I say that as an absolute compliment with regards to Caruso. He’s a relentless defender, decent shooter, generally a winning player. Coby White is a guard off the bench who likes to shoot and if he gets hot can be a problem, Derrick Jones Jr jumps very high, the corpse of Goran Dragic plays occasionally, Andre Drummond is on this team.

They should probably be better than they are, but they might find their footing. They have bad matchups for the Pistons as well. Should be a tough game for Detroit.

Matchups to watch:

• European Pistons fans vs. Having a blast: Mentioned it earlier, but I’ve loved all the images and videos of European Pistons fans prepping for this game. It is not easy to follow an international team and many of those fans follow just as close as anyone else. Just immensely fun.

• Saddiq Bey? Last time out makes 3 solid games for Bey. Two more and we are at 5 and I’ll officially allow myself to hope he may have turned a corner.

• Killian Hayes vs. Showing out for home: Killian is french, pretty straightforward. He should be on his best game, although hopefully he doesn’t overdo it and try to hard to hit a bunch of stupid shots or something. Or maybe he tries to hard but something in the air over there allows him to hit those absurd shots, who knows?

• Pistons vs. Whichever guy Killian doesn’t take: Killian should be able to at least play reputable defense on either one of LaVine or DeRozan. Whichever guy Killian doesn’t have on any given possession is trouble. Somehow this game just screams big night for DeRozan.

• Bulls vs. Not beating bad teams: The Bulls have had this bizarre trend all season where they beat and/or play close games with the league’s best teams but flop against bad ones. That means we’ve got them right where we want them.