Only eight games and approximately two weeks remain in the NBA season. We’re approaching the end of our weekly grades for the Chicago Bulls, with their playoff ate still undecided.
Next: Chicago Shoots Milwaukee out of the game
Dwyane Wade is gone and the rotations from Fred Hoiberg have started to mellow out just a bit. After going 12-13 players deep over and over, only eight players appeared in all four Bulls games since our last grade report. One additional player hit three games and the rest of the boys had less than that.
It’s good to see Hoiberg settling things down and making more decisions, one of them actually paying off. The move to bring Nikola Mirotic into the starting lineup and send Bobby Portis to the bench was the right decision. That’s just about universally the first time all year that I can say that Fred did it right. A month or two earlier, Bobby coming out of the lineup would have meant four or five DNPs after a start. Now, it just means that he comes off the bench.
Hoiberg is learning with other guys, too. Paul Zipser got into foul trouble very quickly on Sunday afternoon. He was pulled from the game after less than three minutes of gameplay. Normally, this would be a Jerian Grant situation – banished to the bench for the foreseeable future. Instead, Zipser got back into the game in the second quarter and finished the game with 10 points, six better than anyone who came off the bench.
Chicago is still in the ninth seed as of Monday, but they played some erratic basketball to be certain, going 2-2, seeing beating teams they arguably shouldn’t have and getting the win over at least one team playing much better basketball of late.