3 biggest culprits for Bulls’ inability to beat NBA’s top teams

2. Injuries Ruined Their Chemistry

A lot of the Bulls’ problems have been masked with the injury excuse. At this stage in the NBA season, everyone is battling the injury bug in some shape or form. The good teams find a way to pull out some of those games, or at least keep them close.

The Bulls have not, though, and it’s concerning. But there’s a difference. Teams like Phoenix and Golden State have cores that have played at least one season together. The Bulls don’t. They welcomed seven new players, including their best player at the moment (DeMar DeRozan).

They were getting in a groove before Lonzo Ball hit the shelf. After Ball, Caruso went down, followed by Nikola Vucevic and Zach LaVine. Since then, they have looked out of sync and without a purpose. They can’t get on the same page defensively, they don’t seem to know each other’s sweet spot offensively, and they can’t motivate each other consistently.

All of these issues can be fixed with time, but right now the Bulls don’t have that. This team needs to have some level of success in the playoffs with LaVine’s contract expiring and Vucevic trade scenarios being pondered by analysts and talking heads each week.

Donovan can try to experiment with lineups that best maximize the natural chemistry, like adding Caruso to the starting lineup and perhaps making Coby White the official sixth man. Ultimately, their chemistry woes aren’t something that can be fixed anytime soon since we’ve seen just about no progress on that front.