Bobby Portis wasn’t naming names.

Then again, the one-time Bull turned Bucks cult hero didn’t really need to.

After a huge Game 3 statement win for the defending NBA champions on Friday, Portis was talking about the role he tried to play in the one-sided laugher for visiting Milwaukee, as he finished the game with 18 points and 16 rebounds in just 25 minutes of work.

Work that by the way came as the starter for an injured Khris Middleton.

“Play with confidence,” Portis said of his mindset. “That’s the biggest thing. Playing with confidence is a big thing out there on the basketball court, and you know who’s confident and you know who’s not.”

Exhibit A in who looked confident? Portis.

Who did not?

The player Portis was assigned to guard at the start of the game, and really didn’t end up needing to guard. Instead, the Bucks used Portis to help double-team and push Bulls scorers DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine to their left hands all night, making them relatively ineffective.

A defensive game plan made possible by yet another passive/ineffective performance by Bulls second-year forward Patrick Williams.

First, it’s important to note that Williams did finish the game with nine shot attempts, which was the same amount in his solid Game 2 performance where he scored 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the Bulls win.

This is also where stats like to deceive.

In the Friday first quarter where the Bucks outscored the Bulls 33-17 and established their defensive game plan, Williams took just two shots, being left relatively open in the eight minutes that he was out there by Portis.

Williams took two more shots in the second quarter, as Milwaukee stretched the halftime lead to 60-41, all but ending any hopes the Bulls had in taking control of the series.

In mop-up time in the fourth was when the No. 4 overall pick from the 2020 draft put up four more shots, again missing all of them to finish the night 0-for-9 from the field with one point and four rebounds.

Unacceptable.

Not just from a top five pick, but from any player in the starting lineup.

“The playoffs, it’s all in,” Portis said. “Every guy that steps out there needs to know his role and what he needs to do on the floor to impact winning.”

At just 20 years old and going through his first visit to the postseason, of course Williams doesn’t know that. But what has to start to concern the Bulls is when will something start clicking for him? “Passive Pat” is not a nickname any player wants.

And the excuses about his age and experience are starting to run thin, especially in a postseason where other 20 year olds are not only making winning plays, but in some cases dominating – see Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards.

If Williams isn’t ready, putting him on a playoff stage as a starter might not be the best decision.

Which brings everything back to Portis.

Since Williams was selected out of Florida State, a starting job has basically been handed to him. It might be time for him to really compete for it next year. And not just beating out an undersized Javonte Green or the lame duck forward that was Lauri Markkanen last season.

Portis owns the $4.5 million player option next season. If Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas can free up salary, bringing Portis back to the organization that drafted him would be a good play.

He’d be an emotional spark plug for a team that too often looks like it would rather be in church singing, but more importantly he would be real competition for Williams. Williams just might need to be pushed, especially in that confidence department.

Who was confident on Friday, who was not? Portis wasn’t saying. He didn’t need to.

Read More

Because of the abridged spring training, pitchers are being held back and seeing their workloads limited.

But what about the hitters?

“For our group, I thought we got off to a great start,” Cubs manager Ross said. “Usually, the pitchers are ahead, I think you would say most spring trainings and then you get to the back end of spring training, the hitters start to catch up. I thought we started off, offensively, great.”

Indeed, the Cubs offense did get off to a hot start, scoring 19 runs in the first three games of the year. Yet over their four-game losing streak entering Saturday, the Cubs scored just 12 times, including five over the first two matchups of this series with Pittsburgh.

Cubs hitters had also struggled during the homestand. Catcher Willson Contreras was at 1 for 13, second baseman Nick Madrigal was hitting .188, first baseman Frank Schwindel checked in at .167, and right fielder Seiya Suzuki averaged .214.

Keegan stats
Reliever Keegan Thompson’s four scoreless innings Friday marked his fourth straight outing to start the year without allowing a run to score. Per Cubs historian Ed Hartig, Thompson is the fifth Cubs pitcher with four scoreless relief appearances of at least eight outs in a month since 1893, with the most recent being Mike Proly in August 1982.

“Keegan’s been extremely valuable,” Ross said. “Can’t overstate how well he’s pitched and how good he’s looked and how valuable that arm has been for us.”

Speed it up?
According to an ESPN report, minor-league games using a pitch clock are 20 minutes shorter. Those games utilize a 14-second clock with the bases empty, and 18 seconds with runners on.

Ross didn’t want to give an opinion on those clocks because he hasn’t experienced them personally, but wouldn’t be surprised if they come to the majors sooner or later.

“Guys will adjust,” Ross said. “We don’t like change a lot, as players, but then they’ll adjust to whatever is put in front of them.”

Feeling better
Outfielder Clint Frazier had his appendectomy, and Ross said Frazier texted him to say he was “ready to rake already.” Ross continued that Frazier seems to be doing well and that the Cubs hoped to have an update on his recovery in the next few days.

Pitcher Wade Miley (left elbow inflammation) had been scheduled to throw a bullpen Friday, but that was punted to Saturday because of the wonky weather situation that forced the Cubs’ 4-2 loss to be pushed back to a 7:05 p.m. first pitch.

Bear down
New Bears coach Matt Eberflus threw out a ceremonial first pitch before the game. Per the Bears, Eberflus was prepared for his appearance by former Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood.

Last Saturday, Eberflus’ boss Ryan Poles did the honor at a White Sox game.

Read More

Charles Barkley once said, “If you were to swap the people in Cleveland and Milwaukee, it would be the same dreary-ass city.”

Sheesh, what did Cleveland ever do to him?

Let’s tell it like it is, Bulls fans. Milwaukee? It looks like Chicago coughed up a lung. During severe-weather alerts, residents are encouraged to seek immediate shelter in the nearest pothole. When somebody there says, “I’m in a really bad place right now,” he isn’t referring to his mental state.

If we know one thing about Milwaukee, it’s that there’s essentially nothing anybody needs to know about Milwaukee. The city is so stuck in its ways, Old Milwaukee is still the newest thing about it.

And, man, do the people there ever like to yammer on with dull stories and inane small talk. Or as we outsiders call it, ” ‘Waukee talkie.”

What do you say whenever you’re anyplace but Wisconsin and meet somebody from Milwaukee?

“Hey, I would’ve left, too.”

And Bucks fans, wow. How do you define irony? It’s a bunch of knuckleheads standing around the “Deer District” wearing “Fear the Deer” T-shirts as they talk about getting together again after basketball season and blowing a bunch of unsuspecting deer’s brains out.

A spoiled brat isn’t what a Bucks fan calls a child with a bad attitude. It’s something he covers with extra sauerkraut and eats anyway. Yeah, I know, that joke was the wurst.

Look, I’m trying over here. To do what, exactly? To stoke the flames of a pure, unadulterated, angry basketball rivalry between that city (one I happen to really like, truth be told) and ours.

It probably isn’t working.

There’s a better way for this to become a proper rivalry, of course, and that’s for the Bulls to knock the defending NBA champs out of these playoffs. To steal their hoops superiority and snuff out any big ideas about a Giannis Antetokounmpo-fueled dynasty. If the Bucks make it through to Round 2, nothing changes. But if the Bulls win? The pot gets stirred.

But as the Bulls and Bucks returned to Chicago for Games 3 and 4 of their best-of-seven first-round series, it didn’t sound like Games 1 and 2 had done anything to stir up any sort of nastiness between them. No lingering bad blood after what the Bucks’ Grayson Allen did to the Bulls’ Alex Caruso months back. No sweet stench of danger in the air after Bulls reserve Tristan Thompson bloodied the eye of Bucks super sub Bobby Portis.

Instead, we got something tame from Allen: “I know if there’s some red in the crowd, someone’s in there booing.”

And something lame from Portis: “Having the proper respect for everybody that you play throughout the season and in the playoffs is big.”

Things might be a lot more entertaining if they’d loosen their screws a bit. For sure, it would be a lot better than watching the Bucks calmly demolish the Bulls by 30 points again as they did Friday for a 2-1 series advantage.

Remember how Joakim Noah used to trash Cleveland? Or how Noah and the Bulls just palpably resented LeBron James and the Heat? That sort of welcome biliousness hasn’t entered the building yet in 2022.

Take Antetokounmpo’s comments the other day about Caruso: “Great defender, plays hard, gives everything he has, extremely smart, plays to win, helps his team any way possible, does the little things. That’s what makes him special.”

Isn’t that a flagrant foul for excessive niceness?

The Bulls have been no less gracious and complimentary. These teams should be more at odds with each other, but they aren’t — not yet — and it might be because there’s essentially no postseason hoops history whatsoever between these franchises and cities. The Bucks and Bulls have all too rarely even been average or better at the same time.

How many times did Michael Jordan’s Bulls beat the Bucks en route to a title in the 1990s, for example? Zero. It was as if Vin Baker, Ray Allen, Johnny Newman et al. weren’t even on the map. The Tom Thibodeau-coached Bulls met the Bucks in the playoffs only once, in 2015 — when Antetokounmpo was still just a baby — and dispatched of them in the first round with relative ease.

A Bulls series win over the champs not only would raise the intensity between teams and cities heading into next season, but it might lift the excitement at the United Center to a level it hasn’t seen since Derrick Rose went down with that terrible knee injury in 2012. Bucks guard Jrue Holiday and Bulls center Nikola Vucevic were youngsters on the eighth-seeded 76ers team that instantly benefitted against the East No. 1 Bulls.

“You could feel the energy just taken out of the UC,” Vucevic said.

Since then, Bulls fans have been more guarded, more cynical, and who could blame them? They haven’t had as promising a squad as that 2011-12 crew to rally around. And they definitely haven’t had a natural enemy.

Milwaukee? You couldn’t make the place up if you tried, and you damn sure wouldn’t want to.

Sorry, just trying to do my part.

Read More