Heading into their Christmas Day meeting with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Chicago Bulls had lost three straight games. Since Christmas, the Bulls are 6-1. Are the Bulls finding solutions to their early-season problems?
Despite a plethora of potential long-term issues, the Chicago Bulls are 21-12 and just 2.5 games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference standings.
After Tuesday’s 117-106 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, the Bulls have won six of their last seven games and appear to be getting hot in the new year.
Jimmy Butler has caught fire in the last eight quarters by scoring 74(!) points on 59 percent shooting, including a 40-point half(!!) against the Toronto Raptors this past Sunday.
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Derrick Rose returned from a three-game absence due to hamstring tendinitis and made six of his eight shot attempts around the rim for a 16-point, six-assist night against Milwaukee.
Even rookie forward Bobby Portis has been getting in on the fun.
Portis only saw action in three games before Pau Gasol’s day of rest after a four-overtime thriller against Detroit on Dec. 18 and Joakim Noah’s shoulder injury against Brooklyn three nights later.
Since Noah’s injury, Portis has shot 50 percent from the floor on 7.5 shot attempts per contest and has brought a good spark off the bench for a Bulls team that seemed to be limping into the new year.
The stars are aligning for the Bulls as of late.
Outside of a loss in Dallas in the SEGABABA, the Bulls have beaten Oklahoma City, Toronto (twice), Indiana, New York and Milwaukee.
Add that to their previous resume of wins over Cleveland, San Antonio and Los Angeles (Clippers), and not many teams can present that kind of case as a contender.
During this hot streak of play, the Bulls have climbed to 21st in Basketball-Reference’s team offensive ratings, while maintaining the league’s fifth-best defensive rating.
"“The big thing is we are playing unselfish basketball,” said coach Fred Hoiberg.“(The ball) is not sticking as much as it was early in the year. The ball is going side to side, which is very important for our team. Our guys are recognizing mismatches on the floor, which they evolved into. Earlier in the year, they might have been unable to recognize those things. The big thing is when we swing that ball from side to side and attack after the defense shifts and we are so much more effective. That is the key to our numbers going up.”(Bulls.com, Sam Smith)"
As for the ever-popular pace category for Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg, the Bulls now rank 10th in Basketball-Reference’s pace category.
This recent stretch of great play seems reminiscent of the Bulls’ stretch towards the end of 2014 into the new year.
From Dec. 10 until Jan. 5 last season, the Bulls were 13-2 in a 15-game stretch and sat at 25-10 through 35 games.
From Dec. 10 up to Tuesday night’s win, the Bulls are 10-4 in a 14-game stretch and sit at 21-12 through 33 games.
Of course, there’s the part where the Bulls went 5-10 after Jan. 5 last season and didn’t play too many games in the friendly confines of the United Center.
For the Bulls this season, they’ll play just five of their next 13 games at home from now until the end of January. Their opponents in those games are Boston, Washington, Dallas, Golden State and Miami. If the playoffs started tomorrow, all of those teams besides Washington would be in the postseason.
This upcoming stretch feels like a big one for the Bulls after such a hot start to 2016. They’re starting to find some traction after a poor start to this season, which is kind of crazy to think about.
I mean, this team was looking pretty atrocious just a couple weeks ago.
They lost to a short-handed Brooklyn Nets team, who won’t have control of their own first-round pick until 2019. That pretty much tells you all you need to know.
CBS Sports NBA writer Matt Moore wrote a solid piece on where the Bulls stand as of now, including the early-season dramatic headlines that seemingly were casting a cloud above the franchise again this year.
These couple parts here were some of few that stuck out:
"Does the fact that the Bulls aren’t as impressive, despite that resume, speak well to the idea that they can find a better version of themselves? Or are all these problems waiting to catch up with them in the postseason. It’s hard to buy the Bulls as legit challengers to Cleveland, just as it’s hard to consider any Eastern Conference team as such.The Bulls are proving they belong in the dance, though. For a team that looks so good on paper, there are reasons to worry about what they look like at season’s end. Still, if forced to choose between being drama free with great numbers and a mediocre record, and what the Bulls have found, they would choose the wins."
The Bulls have proven that they can be that good numerous times this season. Just look at the record and the teams they’ve beaten along the way.
But, haven’t we already seen this movie before?
Think back to the Tom Thibodeau era.
The Bulls won no less than 45 games in Thibodeau’s five seasons in Chicago. They made the playoffs every year.
But, did they ever really seem like a legitimate threat to the LeBron-Wade-Bosh Miami Heat or the LeBron-Kyrie-Love Cleveland Cavaliers? No.
The Bulls have proven every year for over five years that they have the talent to make it to the postseason. However, the expectations are more than just staying out of the draft lottery. The expectations are more than just winning a playoff series.
The expectations for the Bulls are making a legitimate title run.
Have they truly proven they can do that, at least so far?
This new era of Bulls basketball seems to have more of a relaxed feel to it, despite some drama already involving most of the core guys on the roster. It’s not grinding out games for 48 minutes every night and becoming the walking dead by May.
It does appear that the Bulls are grasping their new systems and are starting to gel.
The Bulls have been getting out to great starts seemingly every night in this recent stretch and are starting to look like the team that many feel can challenge Cleveland in the East.
Next: Derrick Rose riding shotgun for the Bulls? It makes sense.
But, unless this recent stretch of solid play continues on further than just seven games, holding off on the high aspirations seems like a good idea.
There’s still plenty of work to do.