Bulls boast top-10 offense and defense since the Minnesota debacle
Bulls own top-10 offense, defense since Minnesota loss Original version: NBC Sports Chicago
PARIS — There are always challenges during a NBA season.
Back-to back sets of games Injuries. Droughts. Inconsistent defensive spurts. Travel time changes.
By maintaining intensity and competitiveness throughout, the best teams can navigate them. That doesn’t mean they win every game. This means that they are willing to give up more than one chance to do so.
The Chicago Bulls have won two straight following Thursday night’s take-care-of-business victory over the Detroit Pistons in the franchise’s first regular-season international game. The five-day trip was described by coach Billy Donovan as a good opportunity for team bonding and refocusing.
However, the Bulls have shown signs of being the team that they want to be.
They are now 10-6 after the Minnesota Dec. 18 crisis, when they allowed 150 points to win a regular-season match for the first time since 1940.
That’s the night that teammates had strong exchanges seeking accountability from each other at halftime and when veteran guard Goran Dragic Summary of the key points succinctly aftergame
“We’re not playing for each other,” Dragic said then. “Simple as that.”
What will this time be like? We are currently at 21-24, and 10th in the Eastern Conference. How can the Bulls continue to play consistently as they move forward?
“I say you confront it, you call it out and you try to expose it,” Donovan said of the inconsistent stretches. “And I appreciated Goran saying what he said because at the time, I think there was a lot of accuracy to what he was saying. And not that anybody has a bad or selfish heart; that’s not what I’m saying. If you miss a shot, it can have a negative effect on you and you need to make a few plays to overcome that. You’re not really wrapped up in competing in the team.
“There’s a selflessness that takes place. You must be so close to the guy next to you that you show such respect for him. And I’m not saying our guys disrespected each other. But it’s almost a reverse way of looking at it: ‘I’m letting the team down because I turned the ball over or missed a shot or blew a defensive assignment.’ No, you’re letting the team down when it parlays into four or five possessions after that.
“So I think when Goran talked about we’re not playing for each other, you’ve got to pick yourself up off the mat because it’s a game that is imperfect. And you’re going to be making mistakes throughout 48 minutes. It’s about how you collectively respond to overcome what’s in front of you regardless of what is going on. The more we can play and care for each other, regardless of what you’re going through individually, that’s what can create the consistency we need.”
There are still nine games before the Feb. 9 trade deadline. To this point, executive vice president Artūras Karnišovas has given no indications to rival executives that he plans to move off his oft-stated goal of continuity for the core that he and general manager Marc Eversley and their staff built, the one that led the Eastern Conference for much of last season until injuries—most significantly to Lonzo Ball—hit.
Ball hasn’t played in an NBA game for over a year and said in Paris while he’s making progress that he still feels discomfort at times. There’s no timetable for his return.
Still, the Bulls have showed signs of being a team that can achieve Karnišovas’ publicly stated goal of improving upon last season. This means at least one round in the playoffs. They are 2-0 in favor of the Milwaukee Bucks, 2-2, with two road losses to the competition Boston Celtics And 2-0 against them Brooklyn Nets.
“These last couple of wins, we’ve been playing the right way, sharing the ball,” Zach LaVine said. “Obviously with DeMar (DeRozan) coming back, it’s great. We’re almost fully healthy again.”
Expecting anything from Ball—or his return in this season’s league—is impossible at this stage. The Bulls will be relying on DeRozan, LaVine, and Nikola Vucevic — who has 10 straight double-doubles—and consistent contributions of role players.
It means not giving up on the game. This means that you must be mentally and physically strong on the court.
“We can’t let our offense dictate our defense. And we can’t let our offense dictate our competitiveness. If you’re really competing, you just get lost in the game,” Donovan said. “I’ve said this from Day One: We’ve got a really good group of guys. I think they’re high character guys and the chemistry and the way they get along is really good.
“But I think there are things that happen in the course of a game that—whatever word you want to use—distract us, frustrate us, get us down, disappoint us. We go through droughts when our competitiveness of intensity isn’t where it should be. I felt that we made a positive decision on this trip. We now have to show that we can sustain this for a sustained period of time. And that’s the challenge.”
It is. Current position of the Bulls is 18th, with a net rating at minus-0.2. They have the 17th-ranked offense as well as the 14th ranked defense.
They are now ranked eighth in offense and defense, respectively, and have a net rating of plus-2.9, which is ranked them 10th.
These numbers can serve as a foundation upon which to build. Or not. It’s up to the Bulls.
“Every single game is that much more important,” DeRozan said. “And that’s the challenge. In the first half of this season, we proved that we can compete with the best teams in this league. Now it’s about putting it together every single night no matter who we’re playing. Because these games, we can’t get back. As long as have that mindset and understand the importance of every single game and every single practice from here on out, we have a chance to put ourselves in a good position.”