Chicago Bulls: 3 Reasons for poor performance post trade deadline

Reasons for Chicago Bulls recent struggles: Defense, or lack thereof

Easily number one in the reasons for the Chicago Bulls recent struggles is their complete lack of defense as a group. It was known the defense would not be great after the moves they made, but what we have seen is oftentimes embarrassing.

There is a difference between bad defense because you’re simply not capable of any better and bad defense because you aren’t putting more into it. More often than not the Bulls are displaying an effort issue.

Teams like the Magic should not light them up like they recently did. Especially when the Bulls are playing for something and Orlando is not.

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Chicago has the sixth-worst defensive rating since the deadline moves were made. Unsurprisingly, they are surrounded by a bunch of bad teams at the bottom of the list. Their defensive rating in that span is 115.4, an atrocious number.

If the Bulls want to turn things around it will begin on the defensive end. Regardless of everything else, if they don’t change their habits on that end of the floor they will continue losing games. Their poor defense has both taken them out of games early and helped them blow leads late.

It’s one of the hardest things to overcome in the NBA, consistently bad defensive effort. With how much they are already putting on their two all-stars offensively, the team needs to wake up on the defensive end of the floor.