Nikola Jokić, Nuggets Pick Bulls Apart In Rout

10 observations: Jokić, Nuggets pick Bulls apart in rout originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

Following three off nights and two days of practice, the Chicago Bulls had an opportunity to notch a signature win at the United Center Sunday night, facing a Denver Nuggets team finishing up an arduous road trip.

But in the end, the contest culminated in a rather deflating 126-103 defeat. The Bulls never led, trailed by as many as 28, and did not draw within single-digits from late in the second quarter until the final buzzer.

Here are 10 observations:

1. This was the Bulls’ first game since Wednesday night, and to hear Billy Donovan tell it, the team used the down time to practice hard, particularly on Friday. Meanwhile, the Nuggets showed up for their fourth game in seven days — all on the road.

Still, it was the fresher team on paper that got off to a slow and sloppy start. After the first quarter, the Bulls trailed 32-20, allowing 60 percent shooting and 11 assists to Denver while shooting 40 percent and committing six turnovers in their own right.

2. Fortunately one of the Bulls’ greatest early-season strengths — their second unit — is also one of the Nuggets’ biggest vulnerabilities, especially with spark plug scorer Bones Hyland in health and safety protocols.

Early in the second quarter, one of the Bulls’ preferred stagger group between the first and second quarters (Zach LaVine plus a reserve quarter of Goran Dragić, Alex Caruso, Derrick Jones Jr./Javonte Green and Andre Drummond) opened an 8-2 run, led by some disruptive defense, against Jamal Murray and a handful of Denver second-stringers to cut a 12-point lead to six.

In the third quarter, a Dragić, Caruso, DeMar DeRozan, Jones, Nikola Vučević unit threatened to make the contest competitive with a 7-0 run that trimmed an 18-point deficit to 11.

But in both instances, the Nuggets re-gained control with the help of their top-end players. In the second, it was Nikola Jokić and Michael Porter Jr. In the third quarter?

3. Well, that was Porter’s time. He scored 16 points in the period and put on an otherworldly shotmaking display by making four of five attempts from 3-point range. Two of those came via off-balance corner catch-and-shoots that helped the Nuggets leap from that 11-point lead to up 20 in a matter of minutes.

In all, Porter finished with 31 points (11-for-16 shooting, 6-for-9 from 3-point range), his first 30-point game of the season. The Bulls simply did not have the perimeter size to bother his trademark high release, and he leveraged aggressive closeouts to slash to the rim for a few finishes too.

4. At halftime, Jokić had 12 assists in 18 minutes of game action — and just three field goal attempts. It wasn’t as if the Bulls were trapping him on every touch, as some teams choose to do against the two-time MVP. He simply seemed content to dictate the terms of engagement by picking the Bulls’ defense apart with his passing, and did so with his typical brand of precision and audacity:

With the Nuggets stretching their lead into the 20s early in the fourth quarter, Jokić only logged 10 second half minutes and finished with 14 assists, four short of his single-game career high of 18. But he no doubt could have hit that number if required.

5. When humming, Denver’s offense is a flurry of screens, cuts and ball-pinging sequences. In other words, Billy Donovan’s dream. In this one, Jokić’s 14 assists led the way to 33 dimes as a team. The Nuggets also placed five players in double-figures: Porter, Jamal Murray (23), Aaron Gordon (13), Bruce Brown (12) and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (10).

6. Certainly, the Bulls’ defense did little to disrupt that rhythm, despite the team entering the game tied for fourth in the league in defensive rating. The Nuggets had plenty of free lanes to the basket and open looks from distance en route to shooting 60 percent as a team and 48.1 percent from beyond the arc. That continued a trend of shoddy ball containment when not forcing turnovers.

And, for good measure, Denver also shot 24-for-30 (80 percent!) in the restricted area and scored 58 points in the paint in addition to their devastating jump-shooting.

7. The Bulls’ offense was plenty disjoined too, racking up 24 assists against 19 turnovers and shooting 6-for-22 (27.3 percent) from 3-point range. Six of those turnovers came in a particularly sloppy first quarter that spring-boarded the Nuggets’ attack.

8. It would be difficult to single out one individual for such a deflated, team-wide performance. LaVine (21 points, 8-for-15 shooting) and DeRozan (16 points, 6-for-11) finished with fine stat lines, albeit not impactful enough, and with 1-for-6 3-point shooting from LaVine; Vučević had a couple sloppy first quarter turnovers and matador defensive sequences in the paint; Dosunmu missed all four of his 3-point attempts; Patrick Williams had a handful active sequences en route to 15 points, four rebounds and two blocks; Drummond (13) and Dragić (11) combined for 24 points off the pine.

Ultimately, it was a rout that felt more indicative of the team’s broader construction than any one player’s performance. Or, at least, a glaring lack of urgency despite the Bulls being the team attempting to claw back to .500 and with the schedule advantage.

9. One notable rotational takeaway was Green logging just three minutes pre-garbage time, while Jones (14 minutes) saw the lion’s share of the backup power forward minutes.

10. In a rarity, Dalen Terry helped mop up the final minutes of this one just over seven hours after tipping off a G League game with the Windy City Bulls up in Hoffman Estates. Terry had 14 points, 10 rebounds and four assists in 33 minutes in that game; against the Nuggets, he put up five points, two assists and nailed a corner 3-pointer.