Without Rajon Rondo, Bulls might be in world of trouble against Celtics

Chicago has some adjustments to make

The Chicago Bulls missed Rajon Rondo in a ton of ways in their 104-87 Game 3 loss to the Boston Celtics on Friday. This is a weird thing to say because the Bulls were significantly better with him on the bench than with him on the floor during the regular season, but it's an inescapable truth after he helped so much in the first two games of the series.

Without Rondo, who broke his right thumb in Game 2, the Bulls' offense stalled and they shot 39.3 percent. They had 14 assists, compared to Boston's 34 assists. They turned the ball over 18 times, leading to 23 Celtics points. Their starting five was demolished, putting Chicago in a hole early on and then failing to build on a good second quarter from the second unit.

Rondo averaged 11.5 points, 10 assists, 8.5 rebounds and 3.5 steals in the first two games. His value, though, was perhaps better illustrated by the style in which Chicago played. He pushed the ball in transition, got into the paint and created easy scoring opportunities from teammates. He also played top-notch perimeter defense against Isaiah Thomas and took advantage of the fact that Thomas is not used to fighting for rebounds. All of these qualities would have been helpful when Chicago got stagnant offensively to the point where it had trouble even throwing passes in the post, and when it was repeatedly burned by Thomas' high pick-and-rolls with Al Horford.

To be clear: The Celtics deserve full credit for their victory. Thomas consistently put pressure on the Bulls' defense. Avery Bradley played his best game of the playoffs at both ends. Boston coach Brad Stevens made excellent adjustments, most notably going smaller with Gerald Green replacing Amir Johnson in the starting lineup and keeping the floor spaced all game. The Celtics could very well have won comfortably even with Rondo in the lineup. It's just hard to ignore how tough a time his replacements had trying to fill his shoes.

Jerian Grant started in place of Rondo and was minus-15 in 15 minutes, with six points, no assists and four turnovers. Backup guard Michael Carter-Williams had two points, three assists and three turnovers, and it's hard to shake the image of him bricking an awful jump shot early in the second quarter with the Celtics up by 20 points.

Chicago found most success in the second quarter, in which Dwyane Wade functioned as the primary playmaker even when Carter-Williams was on the court. Wade had eight of his 18 points and all three of his assists in the frame, and as the Bulls try to keep control of the series, they might need to empower him to run the show more often.

The other option, of course, is using Jimmy Butler as a de facto point guard for the rest of the series. He had by far his worst performance of the postseason on Friday, scoring 14 points on 7-for-21 shooting with no assists while missing all four of his 3-point attempts. One way to get him going might be to simply have him bring the ball up every time and tell him to make plays. That's easier said and done with Boston so focused on stopping him, but perhaps coach Fred Hoiberg could copy Stevens' strategy here: put both Paul Zipser and Nikola Mirotic on the court with Butler to give him room to operate. The star is more than capable of making plays out of the pick-and-roll, and back in 2015 he said he thought of himself as a point guard.

Hoiberg said that Chicago would miss Rondo, but was reluctant to say much about how his absence affected the team. While he lamented that the Bulls didn't take care of the ball, he insisted that he'd have to sit down and go over the tape to figure out what adjustments might need to be made.

"We have confidence in our guards that played," Hoiberg said. "They've given us good minutes this year. we need to try to put things in that are simple, try to create some confidence for those players. that's what we need to do: we need to play simple basketball."

And therein lies the problem. Without Rondo, Chicago's coaching staff needs to figure out which of its flawed point guards to play and/or which of its star wings to play out of position. Whatever it decides, there will be ripple effects with the rest of the rotation. In other words, everything has suddenly become a lot more complicated.