The 2025-26 NBA schedule has been released, and the Bulls should already have their gaze set on the end of January when they head South for back-to-back games against the Miami Heat.
You can view the Bulls' entire 2025-26 schedule here.
Chicago's season has ended just shy of the playoffs for three years running; all of those losses came at the hands of Erik Spoelstra and Bam Adebayo's group from South Beach. Now, the Bulls will have a chance at payback twice in three nights. This will be the time for Chicago to strike, perhaps in more ways than one.
Bulls can get revenge on the Miami Heat for play-in embarrassments
After a 46-36 season in 2021-22 that landed Chicago the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, things began to devolve.
Lonzo Ball hurt his knee in January of that year and didn't recover. The Bulls finished the next season 40-42, barely cracking the postseason with the No. 10 seed. After a 109-105 win over the Toronto Raptors, Chicago missed the playoffs by one game, losing 102-91 to Miami in the play-in.
Already without Ball, Zach LaVine went down early in 2023-24 and the Bulls limped to another near .500 finish at 39-43. Like the campaign before, head coach Billy Donovan's squad won its first play-in contest, this time a comfortable 131-116 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. But like the year before, the Bulls bowed out one win away from the playoffs after being routed 112-91 by the Heat.
Last season was perhaps the best opportunity Chicago had to make a push for the real playoffs. Behind a monster post-all-star-break run from Josh Giddey, the development of rookie Matas Buzelis and Coby White's transformation into one of the league's most explosive scorers, the Bulls won 17 of their final 27 games and 10 of their last 13.
They couldn't get over their Heat bugaboo, though, as a group that scored 121.5 points per game after the break only managed 90 in a 19-point drubbing.
It won't solve all the postseason woes and disappointments of the last three years -- nor the pure mediocrity -- but beating Miami on its own floor twice in three nights would give the Bulls some confidence if they face the Heat again with the playoffs on the line. If nothing else, it would be a satisfying weekend.