Chicago Bulls Struggling to Take Defensive Identity of Tom Thibodeau's Teams
CLEVELAND — Noise can be nuisance when that noise is coming from the outside, whether the crowd or the critics. But another sort of noise is also necessary, the noise created by teammates assisting each other, the noise that Derrick Rose deemed too often missing again Monday.
"The whole team has a lack of communicating to one another when we're on the floor," Rose said after Chicago's 108-94 loss to the suddenly surging Cleveland Cavaliers. "Everybody's quiet."
And so now, with the Bulls suffering through their worst stretch of the season—six losses in eight games, including three by double digits—that other noise, that annoying noise, that distracting noise, is about to get a lot louder.
There's no question that the Cavaliers, even after a three-game winning streak that raised their record to 22-20, register as the East's leading disappointment thus far, allowing every other team to slip under the media's radar. Soon, more people will start noticing that the Bulls, while still 4.5 games ahead in the Central Division standings, don't rank all that far behind on the letdown meter, with the 10th-best record in the NBA.
They appear to have their most talented roster, from top to bottom, of the Tom Thibodeau era.
Yet they don't look anything like a Tom Thibodeau team.
That was what was most striking about Monday's performance.
Not that it was careless, though it was certainly that, with forward Tony Snell passing to Cavaliers coach David Blatt, Pau Gasol fumbling a ball out of bounds and Rose, Gasol and the tailspinning Jimmy Butler combining to miss 29-of-44 shots.
That it was listless.
That it was lifeless.
Toothless.
The apathy was evident early.
Most notably on a first-quarter possession, with the Cavaliers already ahead, 13-8, when the Bulls allowed three offensive rebounds before Taj Gibson's block of Kevin Love, who grabbed the loose ball and got fouled. And it was noticeable throughout, as a team that has irritated LeBron James more than any other with its consistently physical, occasionally chippy, defensive style allowed him to get consistently comfortable, as he made 12-of-23 shots for 26 points.
Every team has an off evening when it doesn't play to its identity. But when it happens too often, it's time to reassess whether that old identity still applies. The Bulls entered Monday with a defensive rating of 102.4, 12th in the NBA, and highest—meaning worst—of the five-season Thibodeau era, and the defense has reverted to the level where Vinny Del Negro left it.
Chicago had allowed eight of the past 10 teams to score at least 100 points, including 121 to the Orlando Magic.
Make it nine of 11.
And while Joakim Noah may have helped, had he not been out with an ankle injury, the effort in his absence still made Thibodeau quite mad.
Here's a sampling of the coach's displeasure:
"We've got to decide when enough's enough."
"We've got to get better. It's really that simple. The way we're playing, it's not acceptable. So we have to change it."
"Right now, we're not a multiple-effort team, we're not concentrating, we're not doing our jobs. We've got to change that, we've got to change it. We're not getting it done. We've got to figure it out."
He noted that this team is different from others he's had, and the team is working through injuries, with starters Noah and Mike Dunleavy still on the mend. But he's had other teams that have been more depleted, teams that didn't have Rose. The former MVP has played in 16 of the past 17. In his last seven appearances, the Bulls have lost six times.
So Thibodeau shot down the continuity excuse, as the team tries to integrate new pieces (Gasol, Nikola Mirotic, Aaron Brooks) and adjust to missing pieces (with Noah and Dunleavy the latest to be out).
"We're halfway through the season now," Thibodeau said. "We should be past that. So, somehow the notion that it's OK, we'll be all right, no, come on, it doesn't work like that, it doesn't work like that."
Here's what else isn't working, at least not hard enough: this team. Not at the level of his previous teams. That may be due in part to Rose's return, actually, which cost them their underdog status. When asked why the Bulls had slipped defensively, Rose referred to a possible correlation with their ability to score easier than in previous seasons; they actually have their highest offensive rating since 2010-11, when they topped the East at 62-20.
But Rose admitted that previous teams "played our heart out. Those teams played their heart out. I don't know. We've just got to come out there with that edge."
The squads of the past three seasons were scrappier, largely because, without their offensive creator to compensate, they had no choice.
And with Rose frequently struggling with his shooting—he missed his first seven shots Monday before catching fire—and Butler's percentage dropping precipitously since December, that's at times been a losing bargain. It's happened whether Noah has been playing or not, and it's happened despite Pau Gasol being, even at his least engaged, a slight defensive upgrade over the departed Carlos Boozer.
"We've got to bring some energy," Gibson said. "We've got to find a way to push ourselves out of this. No one's going to feel sorry for us. ...This is going to test our character. We've just got to bounce back."
He said they have the tools, and the personnel, and "it's all about how much heart you have," but he also noted a key difference with that 2010-11 team, which did it on both ends—until, in the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals, it couldn't do enough to stop James.
"That team just took a lot of pride on defense," Gibson said. "Everybody knew their role, everybody knew their position, what they needed to do when they came in the game. The second unit knew if you came in the game and had the lead, you had to keep the lead."
This team?
"It's a different mix," Gibson said.
Different from a team that had Rose at his peak, but also had a steady "Bench Mob" to cover the starting group's defensive warts.
"We had guys who really took pride in it," Gibson said. "But you've got to overcome."
The frequent injuries.
The inconsistent rotation.
"Man, we're midway through the season," Rose said. "There's no excuses. Our biggest thing is competing. Playing this game for so long, and when you don't have that edge, we're going to keep getting our a-s whooped."
Monday, that spanking made quite the sound.
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