Bulls know there's no room for turnovers
The Bulls' primary chore Sunday was watching video of their Game 4 loss at Milwaukee, which forced them to relive those season-high 28 turnovers.
As Mike Dunleavy pointed out, the process can be less painful if you make a game of it.
"I wasn't counting, but I was counting," Dunleavy said after a light practice at the Advocate Center. "You turn it over 28 times, there are some pretty amazing ways to do it. At some point, you start becoming creative. It was pretty amazing the way we turned it over, but hopefully we'll fix it."
There's not nearly enough space to describe all the turnovers in Saturday's 92-90 loss, but it is easy to spot a few trends.
Most notably, very few of the turnovers were unforced. Some were more careless than others, but almost all were the result of Milwaukee's aggressive, long-armed defense.
The Bulls were never called for traveling or three seconds. There was only one charging foul, on Jimmy Butler. The two mistakes that would qualify as unforced were bad passes by Derrick Rose. Early in the contest, he fired an overhead pass into the seats - nailing a Bulls fan holding a beer - then threw a bullet pass in the second half that bounced off Taj Gibson's hands and out of bounds.
The majority of turnovers fell into three common categories:
• Seven giveaways could be chalked up to overdribbling. Rose and Aaron Brooks both lost the ball while trying to split double-teams. Nikola Mirotic was caught from behind on a fastbreak. Of course, on the Bulls' final possession of the game, Rose tried to drive into three defenders and had it stolen.
• Five turnovers could be written off a careless passes. This has been a problem for Gasol most of the season and he had a few of those Saturday.
• Four times the Bulls tried to get it to a big man, and one of the Bucks, usually center Zaza Pachulia, jumped in front and either stole the ball or tipped it away.
When it's all said and done, there's no mystery to this series, which the Bulls can end by winning Game 5 on Monday at the UC. Creating turnovers is Milwaukee's specialty, and the Bucks have tall, long-armed players who can get it done.
Plenty has been written about how the Bucks started double-teaming Gasol aggressively after his 46-point game Jan. 10 at the United Center. But Milwaukee traps all over the floor. When Rose crosses midcourt, a second player usually runs up to try to force the ball out of his hands. Anyone who gets into the paint probably will get doubled, it's just that Gasol is in there most often.
"No question, their biggest strength is their defense and the way they turn your over," Dunleavy said. "There's not a lot of teams in the league that play the way they do. Most teams nowadays defend a certain way. There's kind of a common recipe to do things and (the Bucks) do things a little bit different. They've got some unique players and they present problems.
"That's probably the biggest reason why they're the sixth seed and had such a great year."
The solution also is straightforward: Don't pass into a crowd, don't dribble into a crowd. Keep the ball moving and create open shots. The Bulls are shooting 41.4 percent from 3-point range in this series, up from 35.3 during the regular season.
"They test your will to keep the ball moving," coach Tom Thibodeau said Sunday. "Usually if you hold on to it for too long or you dance with the ball or make a risky pass, it's going to lead to a problem. Hit the first open man, be sound with the ball. When we did that, we got good shots.
"I don't think we played particular well (in Game 4). I also know we had the ball with 20 seconds left with a chance to win it. Just bounce back and be ready to go tomorrow."
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