Mavs gang up on LaVine, beat Chicago Bulls in process
Zach LaVine has seen his name among the NBA scoring leaders. And now he's seeing defenders everywhere he looks.
Monday night was an example of what happens when a smart coach like Dallas' Rick Carlisle devises a plan to combat the Chicago Bulls' dominant scorer.
LaVine usually had a good defender, Dorian Finney-Smith, in his face and two other Mavs were standing by to wall off the basket anytime LaVine got past the first line of defense.
The result was a frustrating night. LaVine kept his 20-point streak alive by scoring 26. But he hit just 8 of 23 shots, committed 7 turnovers and the Bulls lost to the Mavericks 103-98 at the United Center.
This makes four times in the last six contests that LaVine has shot less than 35 percent in a game. Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg saw the excessive defensive attention as a great opportunity to create open shots.
"If we draw two, somebody's going to be open," Hoiberg said. "When we did that, when we made the right play, we got whatever we wanted out there.
"I give Zach a lot of credit, for as much volume as he has on the offensive end right now, as much as we're playing through him, he's growing as far as making the simple play. It needs to continue. We just need to make the right play."
LaVine finished with 5 assists, while point guard Ryan Arcidiacono led the Bulls with 6. But as a team, the Bulls had more turnovers (17) than assists (16).
In theory, it will be tougher for teams to gang up on LaVine when the Bulls get Lauri Markkanen, Kris Dunn and Bobby Portis back from injury. But he will be seeing this sort of focused defense for a few more weeks at least.
Hoiberg said before the game Markkanen has done more conditioning than shooting as he recovers from a right-elbow sprain. It sounds like it might be another two weeks before Markkanen makes his season debut.
The Bulls were within 81-80 early in the fourth quarter, but Dallas scored the next 6 points to take control. Once rookie Luka Doncic (10 points) drained a 3-pointer to put the Mavs up 96-88 with 3:10 left, the Bulls could never get back in it.
The Bulls shot 39.3 percent from the field overall and hit just 8 of 33 attempts (24.2 percent) from 3-point range.
"We've got to get the pace, we've got to get down the floor much better, and I put that on me," Hoiberg said. "I've got to be better as far as getting us down the floor and getting us into something where we're not stagnant for as long a stretches as we are right now. I've got to get us better at that."
Stevenson High School grad Jalen Brunson scored 2 points in 13 minutes for Dallas in his pro debut at the United Center. Jabari Parker added 16 points for the Bulls (4-10), while Justin Holiday had 14.
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