Fred Hoiberg meant no disrespect to the defending NBA champion Cavaliers when he pondered what the Bulls faced without Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade in a late tipoff Wednesday night against the Warriors at Oracle Arena.
"When they got Durant in the offseason, obviously they became the favorites to win the championship," Hoiberg said. "It’s just such a high-powered attack."
And despite all the headlines the myriad talents of Durant and Draymond Green and the long-distance shooting of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, it’s powered also by strong defense and interior scoring.
When the Bulls signed Rajon Rondo and Wade in free agency last July, widespread reaction centered on how that flew in the face of how the NBA is trending these days. Not to mention how it wouldn’t fit in the pace-and-space system of Hoiberg that was promoted upon his hiring.
The 3-point shooting has played out in predictable fashion. As the Warriors entered Wednesday night as one of six teams attempting 30 or more 3-pointers per game, the Bulls ranked dead last at just 20.2 attempts. Worse, the Warriors’ 12.2 made 3-pointers per game nearly doubled the Bulls’ last-place ranking of 6.4 per outing.
Does the lack of outside shooting ever get frustrating for Hoiberg?
"You have to try to play to the strengths of your team," he said. "We’ve done a good job with second-chance points. The last four games have been really effective offensively. We’ve had good pace and cutting. Our screening has been better. And our overall pace has been better.
"You have to try to get some baskets before the defense gets set with our lack of outside shooting. At the same time, if you get open looks, you have to step up with confidence and take them. That first group, we’ve gone inside and done a good job of locating mismatches."
Indeed, as the Bulls surprisingly had Cristiano Felicio available ahead of schedule from his strained lower right leg, the Bulls had another screener and rim roller and post-up option. The Bulls are old school in many ways in that they typically like to work inside-out initially, often setting up Robin Lopez in post-up situations.
"That’s obviously a huge strength for us," Lopez said. "We have people at different positions who can post up. We also have a lot of slashers. As a basketball team, you have to play to your strength. We have an impact on the game with our physicality, crashing the boards, attacking from inside the paint."
The Bulls entered Wednesday 17th in offensive rating, scoring 104.8 points per 100 possessions. The Warriors were first with 113.8 points. But even without good 3-point shooting, the Bulls have been better offensively lately, scoring 112 or more points in four straight games for the first time since January 1996.
"We have a lot of very intelligent basketball players," Lopez said. "So whatever perceived weaknesses anyone could come up with, I know we can make up for that through intelligence. We’re doing a good job lately of not being stagnant, moving the ball, finding the open guy."
That’s every night for the Warriors, who were trying to avoid their first two-game regular-season losing streak since April 2015.
As for Butler, he said his right heel contusion is improving, but he’s being smart.
"There are just certain movements that will make it worse, and you don’t want it to go into something bigger than this," he said. "I don’t want to play 10 minutes and be like, ‘I can’t move.’ I want to be the player I can be on both ends of the floor. My coaches, my teammates understand that. When I go out there, there ain’t gonna be no restrictions."
kcjohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @kcjhoop
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