Chicago Bulls vs Milwaukee Bucks: Position-By-Position Preview For The Playoffs
By Fuad Ahad
As it stands, a healthy and fully intact Chicago Bulls team would face the surprising Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
For the first time in years, the Bulls will have Derrick Rose and every other player on the roster available for the start of the postseason barring any unforeseen circumstances.
It’s been mentioned quite often now, but it’s an important fact about this team that with the intended starting lineup of Rose, Jimmy Butler, Mike Dunleavy, Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol, the Bulls are 16-5. That equates to a .789 winning percentage, which would be no. 1 in the Eastern Conference (Atlanta Hawks have a .753 winning percentage) and no. 2 in the entire NBA (Golden State Warriors have a .808 winning percentage).
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If they can acquire some semblance of chemistry in these last few games, it seems as though anything is possible for this team.
The Milwaukee Bucks were on the opposite end of the spectrum when it came to preseason predictions. With Jason Kidd‘s abnormal hiring and the team just coming out of the draft lottery with the second overall pick, the Bucks were expected to struggle through another rebuilding season. Low and behold, coach Kidd has worked wonders with this young group and has them playing solid basketball.
They lost rising rookie Jabari Parker to a torn left ACL and traded away “almost All-Star” Brandon Knight. The trade sprouted question marks all over the league as Knight had easily been their best player all season.
They replaced Knight with the previous season’s Rookie of the Year, Michael Carter-Williams. MCW has been compared to a young Jason Kidd, and the Bucks believe Kidd can develop him into a similar type of player.
With the Bulls sitting in the third seed and the Bucks comfortably seeded sixth, the two teams meeting in the first round is everything but a foregone conclusion. Let’s preview all of the positional match-ups in this potential series.
Next: Derrick Rose vs. Michael Carter-Williams