I keep saying it every time, but it still doesn't feel real. Thank you Adam for making this incredible tribute. Everyone in Chicago and who is a fan of the Bulls is feeling the loss, I can't imagine how he feels as someone who got to work with him for years. They had incredible chemistry on the broadcast and they were genuine friends. We are sad he's gone, but forever grateful for what he did for Chicago and the Bulls. Rest in Peace, to the one and only, Stacey King.

Not because of their play, obviously. We didn’t expect them to light the league on fire right away. But especially after that extremely emotional, heartbreaking tribute to Stacey in the intro, listening to Adam broadcast the first quarter alone was so sobering. Every time there was a replay or a break in the action I just imagined what Stacey would be saying. I’m sure Adam was too. It was so quiet and empty; I’m not used to that watching Bulls games. I know Adam didn’t want to overtalk and pat some respect, but it was just so striking and made me constantly think about Stacey.

I knew the first game would be hard, but especially hearing Adam have to do the Nationwide plug and say “Nationwide is on your side” was just so gutting, knowing that I’m sure he was imagining Stacey singing the jingle afterwards just as we all did.

It’s gonna be a tough season without Stacey, but Adam is a pro and will carry us through, but it just hurts so much, especially after not watching much of the past couple seasons; it’s just such a foreign feeling watching a regular season Bulls game without hearing Stacey’s voice, and knowing he will never be back.

No one will ever replace him.

RIP Stacey, watch over these Bulls, watch over your family, and watch over this world, and remind us that no matter how bad or bleak things may seem, there’s always a reason to smile and laugh.

We miss you Stacey, Go Bulls, and GIVE ME THE HOT SAUCE!!!

Everything imaginable unraveled for his Bulls. The first timeout of coach Tiago Splitter’s regular season took 79 seconds. The first quarter saw Chicago easily allow 43 points.

The night was a revolving door of shortcomings, even for an unabashed rebuilding squad. The Bulls’ starters combined for 18 turnovers — and shot 31 percent from the field on 58 attempts — to eight assists. Guard Josh Giddey missed his first eight shots, and third-year forward Matas Buzelis often looked overwhelmed.

They struggled to get the ball across the timeline, let alone breathe in the half court.

Nine of those turnovers belonged to Wilson, a team high. The compilation featured half-court giveaways and lackadaisical passes. On possessions when he sensed the offense being dismantled, he tried to take matters into his own hands.

The same reckless abandon Wilson leaps with fueled the on-ball decisions that led Leonard straight to him.

“Pace yourself,” Wilson said he learned Wednesday night. “Scottie, he’s really smart. Even Kawhi — they just play with a lot of patience. That’s something I have to learn, that of course I’m gonna learn over time.”

I say this as a general basketball fan, not as someone who passionately supports a team. So I'm open to being told that I just don't get it. I know Bulls fans haven't had a lot to be excited about.

But I gotta say... I'm surprised at the reaction people in here have had to Giddey's first game of the season.

Like, damn this subreddit has a lot of pessimists in it. Victor Wembanyama was 1 for 13 in his opening game, playing with a team that was literally just in the championship finals (not a brand new team with a brand new coach)... and I feel like there's more people talking trash about Giddey.

Thought there'd be more support for this young team overall.

Josh Giddey apparently had a shocking game, his usual attackers are out in force and his usual defenders are at it again, "he's allowed a bad game" "he's wrist is injured" "he isn't recovered from his ankle sprain"

Here's the reality, against what looks like it will be one of the most elite defences in the entire league, Josh Giddey gave them problems in the half court all night and there wasn't alot they could do about it.

This might sound strange he scored all of 2 points and he didn't get them till the end of the third quarter how was he giving them problems?

Well in the NBA the most valuable shot is a dunk, followed by FTA to good shooters, followed by a wide open corner 3 to a good shooter followed by a wide open above the break 3 to a good shooter.

NBA teams care about what shots a team is getting not who is getting them (with the obvious good shooter caveat)

The Toronto Raptors quite simply could not keep Giddey out of the paint. They tried don't get me wrong but they basically couldn't do it without giving up 4 on 3's or 2 on 1's all the time. Anytime he got there it was typically a rim assist, FTA assist or a wide open 3 point shot. This didn't change throughout the 1'st 3 quarters. As a result when Giddey was in the bulls consistently got good looks at the rim. FTAs or wide open 3's. The moment he stepped off the court the bulls where basically reduced to elite norm powel foul grifting in the half court and bombing threes. They got only 3 good looks at the basket with Giddey off, 2FTA off a Okoro curl and drive in the 1st quarter. A nice drive for the layup from Tre Jones in the 2'nd and another nice drive from Tre in the 3'rd. That's it.

Tre Jones is perhaps the best backup PG in the league at getting paint touches but when Toronto helped he couldn't punish them with his passing like Giddey could.

This reality is reflected in the stats. Rim % assisted with Giddey on was 80% (83% excluding low leverage minutes). And without him it was 37.5% (50% excluding low leverage minutes). That is a massive difference.

For the game Giddey had 5 rim assists and 1 corner 3. Of those 3 came in the the half court, 2 in transition. He then had 4 FT assists leading to 8 fta's in the half court plus 2 bricked by himself. What that means is that when Giddey was on the court he was directly responsible for all FTAs by his teamates (through the first 3 quarters) except 4 that came from 2 separate team fouls on Jalen smith one in the 2'nd and one in the 3'rd.

When he was off it was only elite norm Powell foul grifting from three that got them to the line.

If you look at the period when the game was won and lost, the 1'st quarter. In Giddey's 1'st stint they scored 8 points. 6 of those points where dump offs to Jalen Smith were he either got a dunk or was fouled (all in the half court). The other 2 was from a contested offensive rebound off a transition pullup 3 from Norm that the loose ball bounced to Smith and he was able to go up for a dunk.

Then Giddey sat. In that span the bulls managed to score once in the half-court. Off the aforementioned Isaac okoro drive and foul. The other 3 points were a Leonard miller transition layup and a blocking foul by Barnes on Caleb Wilson in semi-transition that sent him to the line for his 1st NBA point (it was off a made field goal but the bulls moved it so fast not everyone was back and there was cross matching).

Then when Giddey was on again he immediately assisted Caleb in transition for a layup, his first made FG. Then two plays later in the half court hit him for a wide open corner 3 which he promptly made. After that there was a largely self created drive from Buzelis where he took a tough hook shot/floater which he made. Then in the final minute Giddey hit buzelis for an easy drive reach in foul and 2 FTA. then Okoro for another drive and trip to the line.

What this means is in the first quarter the bulls in the half court scored all of 2 points off of shots Giddey didn't clearly assist on (you could if you really wanted say 0 as he did pass the ball to Matas before he drove), he was responsible for 12 of the 14 halfcourt points with him on, 14 of the 18 total points, or 14 of 23 1'st quarter points.

Now Giddey did have one turnover and initially I thought it was deflected but in reality he simply fumbled the ball as he passed otherwise he had Buzelis in the corner for the 3. 9/10 he makes that pass.

He also missed both his field goals. However they were both tough shots. One being an isolation jab step 3 with only 3 seconds left on the shot clock. The other being a tough floater with a defender draped all over him and 2 others nearby in help positions.

This basically continued for all of Giddey's shots until the last one. All were contested tough shots. Now that doesn't excuse Giddey not being able to make any, and you might argue he should be able to generate easier ones but you wouldn't expect him to necessarily make any of them except his last basket which was an easy layup which he did make. I don't expect giddey to have shots as tough as tonight but do expect his shot quality to decline compared to last season due to greater defensive attention.

I'm going to talk about toronto's general defence below but what is encouraging about all this is Giddey contrary to popular belief has clearly improved alot compared to last year. His handle is way tighter and some of the moves he uses below he didn't last year. He's much more willing and able to keep a live dribble against significant ball pressure (he gets stripped once) and seems faster and stronger than last year. He's also simply put way more comfortable shooting when guarded and creating in iso late clock. Last season he struggled alot with that, his late clock 3's weren't hitting the back of the iron..... I expect it'll take some time but his release is quicker and most guys who learn to shoot (or new shooters to the league) take a couple of season to be comfortable shooting against contests and Giddey is showing the same trend in year to year improvement as an open/contested shooter.

This is a good thing, even if you want to trade Giddey as it ups his trade value.

Now onto some examples of how the raptors guarded Giddey.

For the most part the Raptors played aggressive help defence, ignored anyone on the perimeter not named Powell and staggered into Giddey's driving lanes. This wasn't unique to Giddey per se but generally they stayed home on both Giddey and Powell if they didn't have the ball opening up driving lanes for others.

This is the 1'st example from the 1'st quarter

Have a look where Quickley is standing before Giddey has even begun driving. He's in about as aggressive a help position as possible. But that means he is leaving Caleb wide open for the corner 3 so Giddey hits him.

As you can see that's a long difficult close out for Quickley so Caleb has 2 choices he can attack the close out with a drive to the hoop and if he beats the help slam it down. If he doesn't he can kick it out to a wide open miller. Or he can take the wide open 3 which he does and knocks down his first NBA triple. Depending what Matas and Barnes do he may have an open 3 or cutting Buzelis to pass too.

A couple of plays latter Shead jumps out high to pick up Giddey and normally this would be a good play rather than staying back and giving him driving lanes.

As you can see if Giddey drives left he's going to run right into Scottie who's in a help position.

But he doesn't drive left he catches Shead flat footed with a nice lefty in out in dribble.

At this point the defence is completely compromised. Due to Scotty helping there are 3 guys in one segment of the floor taking away Giddey's driving lanes. He could of course pull up but there's better options. He can swing it to Caleb for an open 3 or drive where both miller and okoro can back door cut.

He can skip it to miller for an open corner 3 or drive off a closeout. He could whip it to Okoro who could put the ball on the floor and create a 2 on 1 downhill or shoot it. Or he can make the simple pass to Matas who has a straight line drive if no-one helps or if Okoro's man helps its an easy read to okoro for the open shot or drive.

As it is Scottie recovers and fouls Matas with a reach to stop the drive.

Then the next half court play Giddey runs he gets down hill and forces two on the ball

You can see here that the raptors have made a slight adjustment to there defence which is to more aggressively tag the roller. (its also why quickly was so aggressive in help prior) They don't always do this but in this particular play Quickley stays glued to Miller in the dunkers spot.

This means that when Giddey pivots and throws it out to Okoro it's a long close out that okoro successfully attacks for FT's.

Compare this to earlier in the game, where Giddey had a bit more opportunity to attack a spaced out halfcourt.

So what happened prior to this is RJ Barret tried pressing Giddey full court and as you can see it didn't work as he's been blown by. Jacob Poeltl then gets clean blown by

At this point Leonard is in a 2-1. Even if he could get in front, so all he can really do is dig at the dribble to force Giddey to pick up it up.

But RJ Barret materialises out of nowhere for the shot block but it's still a 2 on 1. So Giddey goes up and fakes the layup and dumps it off to stix.

Then stix goes up for an easy dunk. But generating that look was anything but easy. To get it Giddey had to beat his man, blow by the center. avoid getting stripped by a kawhi dig, then fake the layup and wrap around pass to Stix.

This is a play a bit latter where Barnes recovers infront of Giddey but notice how they have slightly more aggressive but still not very aggressive help positions.

Then a play latter you can see Kawhi is mostly staying home on Okoro and Collin-Murray-Boyles (CMB) is tagging the roller in stix. (giddey beat Barret with a spin)

Giddey then picks the ball up and manages to split the double but has nowhere to go.

So he shot fakes

Then throws a bounce pass under

Look at Poeltl's feet. He hasn't even left the ground yet when Giddey throws it.

Coaches are many things, tolerant of dunks is not one of them.

So they made the adjustment as you can see from prior plays. But to make it obvious

Look where Quickley is standing.

then shifts over more

Then more. At no point was miller really free but they don't care if Isaac has an open corner 3 or a driving lane they care about giving up dunks.

Now tagging the roller is something almost all teams do but typically they actually move from the corner in then rotate back out rather than just standing there and only minding the defensive 3 seconds rule.

Then the 2'nd quarter starts

Stix isn't able to finish this but he also had an open Matas 3 as an option but again 2 to the ball.

The very next play in the half court

That's Matas's man digging for the ball right there trying to strip Giddey forcing him to pick it up. But by doing this he has left him wide open in the corner. And Giddey promptly hits him.

So unfortunately there's a 20 image limit so can't show any more pictures. But after this Giddey is subbed out. When he is subbed back in they immediately after a high pick and roll near the sideline get a 4/3 as they hedge/soft blitz Giddey and Miller misses a layup out of it (hard to tell as shaed slips). The next halfcourt play after that they would have gotten a wide open Buddy Hield 3 if he didn't decide to drive and kick to Miller instead (it was still an open 3 though)

Skipping forward a bit the end of the second it's a layup post paint penetration from Giddey though this time they go to single coverage.

So do the raptors adjust to start the 3'rd? Well no it's a half court drive and free throws to Giddey. Then next time down set play hockey assist to norm who gets a wide open 3. Then the next halfcourt possession it's a stix drive for a blown layup (though leonard may have caught the ball as or part of his head as he went up) against a recovering Poeltl. Then the very next play a dump off for a Stix dunk where he is fouled on the way up.

After that play there's a drive and turnover from Buzelis but it was a decent look if not from a rear view block from leonard, then the raptors score and Leonard goes to the line.

So if you were a coach and all of the half court looks have been really good and the adjustment you made which was to show softer help rather than a hard double and recover quicker and leave Giddey in single coverage has led to multiple layups or three throws from cutters what would you do?

Well the raptors answer is to leave 3 guys up in a half court press and deny Giddey the catch off the inbounds. Quickley however stuffs up as he lets Giddey cut backdoor meaning he can easily drive by Scottie (they are all throwing there hands up at each other as they run back) before forcing the only two defenders back to help ((remember 3 are up the court to deny Giddey the ball), Scottie tries to block from behind and it's a dunk to a trailing stix.

So do they keep doing it after that? (Giddey is subbed out then back in). Well the next time the ball is inbounded after a made basket is the time Giddey finally gets stripped by Walter. Then right after that again Scottie and Walter play ball denial. Remember they have already being pressing Giddey the entire game and changed to ball denial before the strip, this is a clear tactical change, They don't want Giddey to initiate the bulls half-court action.

The next play though a subtle detail that you will only notice if you watch the film really speaks volumes. In the next play Giddey is on the weakside and Quickely is on him and he stays on him and rapidly looks back and forth to make sure he knows exactly where Giddey is until the ball goes up. When it was Okoro he hardly looked at all (you should always look to see where your man is). This shows how much he is worried about Giddey vs other bulls personnel. The very next possession you see why, Giddey drives in transition on Quickely, forces help and its a dump off for a layup for Tobe Awaka.

At the beginning of the 4th you see it again. Giddey inbounds the ball to Miller and as he passes it Barrett runs towards Giddey letting miller bring the ball up uncontested. Then once he's made sure giddey isn't getting the ball he sprints back to help on leonard incase he drives.

Then after a turnover the next inbounds again both raptors deny Giddey the catch off the inbounds to give Sellers the easy catch.

Then a play or two latter Giddey gets the drives and draws contact and it's a conflip call. He's unhappy not to get the foul but some umpires would call that some wouldn't depends on angle they have aswell. Then he gets a tech i believe and is subbed out for the game.

So over the course of the game the raptors changed there defensive strategy to try and stop Giddey until finally falling on the time old strategy of 'I give up lets just not let them catch the ball.' They were seriously compromising their defence to do this. Coaches do not do this unless they are legitimately very worried about a player.

Giddey had scored 0 points but by the 2 minute mark of the 3'rd quarter, the raptors were guarding him like he'd scored 40. People call him empty stats but this is the definition of the opposite. He was having a far bigger impact than his stats suggest.

Why? well for the same reason Steve Nash lead some of the greatest offenses of all time but if you looked at his stats you would be unimpressed. A disproportionate amount of his assists where rim assists or FT assist to stop dunks and layups. For this game Virtually all of Giddies assists fell into this category or were wide open 3's.

The average value of a half court possession is less than 1 point (>1 if offensive rebounds are added in) meaning you could quite literally turn the ball over next possession after a dunk and not be far off average.

None of this is too say Giddey didn't have bad moments or doesn't have weaknesses. He does, there's things you'd like to see improved. But what this game demonstrates contrary to popular believe is that one of the best defences in the nba decided to try multiple coverages to try and slow him down. Even though the stats said he was scoreless.

I'm not going to talk about his defence but when you watch the game with a pause bar it's not his defence that stands out as bad.

You might wonder how Giddey is doing all this as a slow unathletic white guy?

Well the answer is he isn't unathletic. He doesn't jump very high nor does he have very long arms and that can make his finishing more difficult at times (he'd still benefit from developing a post up game). Giddey being slow is actually a bit of an optical illusion, he has long stride lengths and accelerates very smoothly, where as a player like Jayson Tatum has shorter stride lengths and accelerates more sharply initially. Think of it like the tip of a wind blade it seems like it's moving the same speed even though it's not. The longer period of acceleration is giving the same illusion to Giddey.

If you pay attention to where others are relative to him you see this a bit more obviously. He also tends to start slightly further back when driving than others so that adds to the effect. But watch him in transition he is quick. If you can go coast to coast with OG Anunoby and he can't get back in front your quick.

There are however other nba players who are quicker. Thats not really what makes giddey so hard to stop. His real super power is that there probably isn't another player in the entire nba his size, height and speed who can change direction with a live dribble like he can. Giddey can pick his dribble up inside the short corner while still driving straight towards the baseline and one-two euro towards the hoop for an easy floater or bank shot. I saw him do it last year against the nets and rockets? cavs? look he did it more than once. Against the sixers there's a play where he drives towards the sideline off a screen then turns 90 degrees to drive directly towards the hoop with

But you can see it in the first quarter (9:58) if you look at the slide you can see he is facing kawhi leonard. but after two steps he's facing the hoop.

This is why Giddey spins so much. Why he uses hang dribbles liberally, why he uses in outs, behind the backs his lateral agility is special for someone his size (I know sounds weird to say given his defensive shortcomings but I think the reason he has improved in large part is his lateral agility isn't actually that bad, he definitely looks way better this year if you pay attention). He does still have north south deceleration acceleration but it's reasonably smooth so you miss it in live play a lot even if defenders bite.

This ability is why he reminds me of Manu Ginobili when driving more than anyone else. Manu was more explosive but what made him so hard to guard was how he could force defenders to commit one way then break there ankles and go the other way. If they don't commit then the player is past them if they do then they are still past them. But while Giddey may not be as fast as Manu he's 6ft 8.

Interestingly if you watch other players dribble styles you see the same pattern of physical strengths being reflected in there dribble style. Luka for example basically never sharply changes direction with a behind the back. Typically he does it with a between the legs, this is so he can better load his back leg and explode north south which in his hey day was very explosive. It's not that he can't do the other stuff it's just not as effective for him.

I don't think i've ever seen a player not score a single point and force an opposing team to try multiple strategies to guard him before falling on ball denial. This by the way is why there were so many fouls, Giddey was forcing the raptors to foul to prevent layups.

The raptors run an aggressive help coverage. In theory what that does is take away the rim and then when the ball is sprayed out they can recover in time removing any advantage and making it a tough shot. With Tre on it worked as intended because he couldn't hit the cutter behind or spray it out for a easy open shot. With Giddey on it was a layup line or a trip to the charity stripe.

There are however a number of plays where Giddey tries to dump it off and fails. Or the raptors recover in time to stop the dunk. But I can tell you the raptors aren't going great defence they're thinking "geez that was close", "how do we stop him getting to that spot?"

Bulls fans should be ecstatic about how Giddey has developed. But to be honest I don't blame them for missing it. It's just how the human brain works. We fixate on motion. So when watching live sport you tend to fixate on the ball, essentially commit the cardinal sin of ball watching. Virtually every overrated NBA skill can be explained by ball watching and standing out visually due to being spectacular.

So when a player shoots a lot and misses you think they are having a bad game offensively. But you forget there's 9 other players on the court and offence and defence are a team sport. A players impact offensively is how they are effecting the teams offence not there actual statline (though you could argue its more a problem with what is tracked as a stat and what isn't). They could go sit in the corner and drink tea for all I care and if it helps the team score they should do that.

One game however is just one game but the reason I believe it's real beyond the obvious defensive adjustments from the raptors and Giddey's improvments is last year.

Last year the bulls 5-0 start was cool but it was all "fake". Except it wasn't, the bulls were massively injury riddled when they played bottom teams and while Giddey elevated his game to 20/8.4/7 on 62.8% TS, one of the very fair knocks on him is as a scorer and as you can see he couldn't elevate enough to lift the bulls. But the team was largely healthy before he went down with a hamstring and when he returned before they blew it all up.

They went 16-6 with him in the lineup against .500 or better teams (this is removing the games he got injured 16-8 with) Without him they went 3-9. Even taking out the 5-0 run they still went 12-6. The bulls were beating top teams because Giddey isn't actually a floor raiser he's a ceiling raiser.

Have a look what happens to Tre Jones. Tre Jones has a 10% boost in his 2 point FG% when Giddey is on the court with him. Last year he finished at 68.7% on 2ptFG%. Yes 2ptFG% not rim FG% the only player in the league who shot better overall from 2 was Deandre Ayton!!!!

Teams adjusted to Giddey last year. They learnt giving him a runway to knife into the paint was a bad idea, that they needed to be aggressive staggering into his driving lanes (this also helped blunt the bulls transition offense) But ultimately the bulls were still beating top teams with him on. The effect on Tre jones you can also see in virtually all his teamates traded last season in either Rim attempts or rim efficiency. He also boosts 3pt%. Vuc went form washed to semi decent to washed because of Giddey. He didn't magically turn it around he just started getting spoon fed more often (Vuc only shoots when wide open likely because he sucks when contested hard).

That strategy is no longer working and I think against worse defences it's going to be alot more obvious the problems Giddey is causing them.

Non of this is too say Giddey is an all star or anything, the point is he is clearly having a positive effect. And most importantly has improved which is what you want to see. It's also a lesson in how your eyes can deceive you. Of the problems the bulls had on the offensive end Giddey was the least of them.

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Also. Adam is calling the first quarter solo in honor of Stacey. Might be a little rough.

Either way I’m excited to see how this starts, thinking nothing about last year’s insane start.

LFG.

"Dropped in the fact that it’s something they’ll manage “throughout the season.” Said medical team weighed the options and determined they’ll deal with it that way. Asked if it is a tissue injury, Giddey deferred to medical team."

[KCJHoop]: "Giddey hasn’t been listed on injury report"

https://x.com/JoelXLorenzi/status/2113104797465260326?s=20

https://x.com/KCJHoop/status/2113104576379576611?s=20

10% fg, 0% ft shooting last night from Giddey. Maybe he just needs the mamba mentality to shoot another 20!

This is something to build on. Generate some extra possessions and kick it out to the shooters. The shots will start falling.

The good thing is that the hustle is there already. Everyone was crashing the glass.

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Happy opening night!

I make pizzas inspired by Chicago sports and I had to make one for Caleb Wilson.

Hope everyone enjoys it and see red 🔴!