🏀 Bulls @ Houston Rockets - Live Weblog - Return of Markkanen

1 December 2018 🕸 🏀

Markkanen is set to make his first appearance for the Bulls this season off of the bench after an injury setback. My focus is going to be on watching him, and how he fits playing alongside a healthy LaVine, Jabari, and Wendell Carter Jr. even though he is probably going to be maxxed out at around fifteen minutes tonight.

19:22 - Carter did a nice job defecting the lob pass to Capella at the hoop, but couldn’t track down the ball and then fouled Capela for the and-1, who surprisingly converted at the line.
19:24 - Markkanen heading the the table getting ready to come in!
19:24 - Carter takes Capela baseline and finished the reverse.
19:25 - Markkanen subs in for Jabari. Cam Payne in for Arci as well.
19:27 - Markkanen gets his first shot off. An off-balance deep post up jumper over Gordon. Missed long.
19:28 - Houston is firing on all cylinders, knocking down all their shots.
19:36 - Markkanen with the three. Went down beautifully from deep range.
19:37 - Bulls are trying to get Markkanen shots, but they aren’t actually running anything for him. Most of the time they are just getting a smaller man switched on to him and trying to pass over the post, but Houston is very aware of this.

Q1 Bulls 22-38 Rockets

19:40 - Jabari back in sharing the door with Markkanen for the first time.
19:41 - Shaq Harrison with a nice driving to the basket, finishing with the reverse. Comes up with a steal on the other side to boot.
19:42 - Carter Jr. back in for Markkanen now.
19:43 - Carter did a decent job defending Chris Paul beyond the arc, forcing a bad three.
19:45 - Got a glimpse of Hutchison lining up for a Jabari free throw. It looked like he said “God dammit”, after seeing LaVine at the scorers table to check in. I wonder if he thought he was coming out or just didn’t want to play alongside LaVine.
19:48 - Off of a missed LaVine drive, Huchison grabbed the offensive rebound, the Bulls moved the ball around and found LaVine in the corner for a three. Bulls starting to show a little bit of life here.
19:52 - Markkanen back in. Sharing the floor with Carter, LaVine, and Jabari now. Big front court, with Arci at point.
19:56 - LaVine with a steal, takes it all the way himself against Ennis, finishing for the and-1.
20:00 - Carter knocking down a shit over Caoela going high glass form the left side. Closing the gap to seven.
20:04 - LaVine knocks down a buzzer beater jumper over PJ Tucker to end the first half.

HALFTIME Bulls 46-56 Rockets

20:24 - I hate when guys make bad passes and try to blame the other guy for it.
20:25 - Holiday passed up the wide open pass to Arci for three. Then after pressure came, lazily tried to shovel it over, with the ball ending up in the first row.
20:28 - Refs have no idea how to call the charge/block foul. Arci takes a clear charge and gets called for the block. You are allowed to be moving. You just need to be in legal guarding position. When the ball handler puts their shoulder forward while being out of control, it’s a charge.
20:37 - Harden leads a little run for the Rockets, knocking down a couple threes and finding Capela for an alley-oop to extend their lead to fifteen.
20:45 - LaVine on a little run after a great strong take to the basket followed by a three, and then a baby jumper from just inside the free throw line.

Q3 Bulls 75-87 Rockets

20:50 - Surprised Blakeney hasn’t seen the floor at all tonight so far. Would much rather have him out there than Payne or Harrison.
20:53 - Nice feed off the pick and roll from Payne to Jabari for the dunk.
21:13 - Scrub time now with the Rockets up twenty.
21:18 - Markkanen finishes with ten points on 4/14 shooting and four rebounds in 26 minutes. A steal and a block as a bonus.

FINAL Bulls 105-121 Rockets

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