With 2 'Must-Win' Games Left, Chicago Bulls Have a Dwyane Wade Problem

BROOKLYN — The Chicago Bulls understood the significance of Saturday night's game against the Brooklyn Nets, their third-to-last of the season. A win would basically clinch a playoff berth, bringing some semblance of certainty to a team steeped in anything but. 

"We've been saying how we needed this one today," Jimmy Butler said.

They didn't get it.

After trailing by as many as 15 points, the Bulls scrapped their way back to take a nine-point lead inside four-and-a-half minutes to play. But Spencer Dinwiddie, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Caris LeVert combined to outscore them 19-9 down the stretch, and the Nets won.

"We've been going through this all year," Dwyane Wade, who returned to action following an 11-game absence, said afterward.

Indeed, the Bulls have emerged as the NBA's premier seesaw, teeter-tottering somewhere between hopeful and hopeless as they meander in and out of the playoff picture.

Every time they seem to make lasting progress, it turns out to be a facade, this latest stretch included. In the 11 games they played without Wade, the Bulls went 7-4, fielded a top-seven defense and posted a higher assist rate than everyone except the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors. Nikola Mirotic shot almost 49 percent from deep and defended his butt off. Butler averaged 27.5 points per game while posting a 53.1/54.2/82.5 shooting slash.

In 10 appearances over that span, Rajon Rondo put up 10.9 points, 8.5 assists and 6.2 rebounds and shot better than 40 percent from downtown. Chicago scored at a top-five rate with him in the game.

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Instead of controlling seventh place in the East, the Bulls now sit in eighth, at 39-41, by virtue of a tiebreaker over the Miami Heat. They face the Orlando Magic and Nets, two of the NBA's five worst teams, to close the season. But as they know all too well, nothing is guaranteed.

"

The Bulls had literally the easiest schedule in the league with 10 days to go and are very much in danger of missing out. Incredible.

— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) April 9, 2017"

"The mentality is we've got two must-win games," head coach Fred Hoiberg said. "We've got to go out with great focus and great energy. The mentality is you've got to win them both.

"We can't let this deflate us."

Basketball-Reference's Playoff Probabilities Report gives the Bulls a 70.5 percent chance of reaching the postseason. Once there, perhaps they can make some noise. They are 4-0 against the Cleveland Cavaliers this season and a combined 8-3 against the East's top three seeds.

But they cannot pretend to be a giant-slayer. Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love and J.R. Smith didn't partake in Chicago's second meeting with Cleveland. LeBron James was absent for the third. The Bulls are 17-20 against teams above .500, and their average net rating versus opponents with losing records is in the negatives. 

Harbingers of a turnaround are nonexistent. Butler is quick to brush off concerns about the offense, but Chicago is 21st in points scored per 100 possessions and still grapples with strained spacing. The defense flirts with top-10 stinginess but gives up a ton of shots in the restricted area and more wide-open threes than two-thirds of the league.

"[We're] still a team that, at times, we lack certain things on the court and it affects us," Wade explained. "We've got to figure out a way to win these next two. We've got them at home, so we've got to figure out a way to win them and just control our own destiny."

There is next to no continuity in the rotation, which falls largely on Hoiberg. He can't control injuries, trades or an incurably imbalanced roster, but the point guard pecking order is a wreck. With Taj Gibson gone, the most-used lineup has appeared in just 14 games and logged 133 minutes—and it doesn't include Wade.

The 35-year-old is an issue by himself. His per-game numbers suggest he's the Bulls' second-most important player, but they improve on both sides of the floor when he's on the bench:

Bulls:	MP	Off. Rtg. (Rank)	Def. Rtg.	Net Rtg.	Record Equivalent
With Wade	1,748	103.1 (No. 26)	106.4 (No. 18)	-3.3 (No. 24)	30-52
Without Wade	2,112	105.3 (No. 16)	104.4 (No. 6)	0.9 (No. 11)	39-43

"I think the biggest thing with Dwyane is the experience factor," Hoiberg said. "He's been in a lot of huge games over the course of his career—probably more than anybody on our roster. Rajon Rondo has the championship experience as well, but Dwyane has been there at this time of year when you're fighting like we are right now. He's a guy we'll lean on heavily to finish out this season and hopefully have the opportunity to play beyond it."

Leadership is good. Results are better. And that's not to say Wade is the primary culprit behind Chicago's standing. He's part of a larger issue, one that was always going to be this team's downfall: The core doesn't make sense.

Stick Rondo or Wade next to Butler, and the Bulls might be fine. Squeezing all three of them into the rotation is overkill:

Bulls:	MP	Off. Rtg.	Def. Rtg.	Net Rtg.
Just Butler	666	105.9	100.9	5.0
Butler/Rondo	854	108.4	104.4	4.0
Butler/Wade	643	105.9	105.1	0.8
Butler/Rondo/Wade	579	103.8	106.2	-2.4
Just Wade	391	101.9	105.5	-3.6
Just Rondo	253	99.3	110.7	-11.4
Rondo/Wade	135	90.3	115.3	-24.9

Incorporating even one of Jerian Grant and Michael-Carter Williams makes things worse. Rondo is playing much better lately, but his ongoing recovery from a sprained right wrist is saving the Bulls, ever so slightly, from themselves. They don't have the surrounding snipers to combat the cramped spacing their nucleus is built to induce.

Somehow, despite inventing new ways to disappoint and the seemingly damning roadblocks, Chicago remains in the mix for a playoff bid. Because Eastern Conference. And Jimmy Butler.

Butler rates as the seventh-most impactful player in the NBA this season, according to NBA Math's Total Points Added. There are nights when he has to drag the Bulls to victory. Their crunch-time sets often devolve into Butler isolations, and while that's less than ideal—as the loss to Brooklyn proved—they have the ninth-best offense in clutch situations.

Jesse D. Garrabrant/Getty Images

"Physically, he's one of those...'Power 3s,' we call them," Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson said of Butler. "There are only a few teams that have them, and those guys are really the toughest matchup in the league. He can go inside, and he can go outside. And then he can play pick-and-roll. He's got the whole package."

The Bulls' objective from here is simple: Finish with the same record as the Heat, and they're in the playoffs. Miami has Cleveland and the Washington Wizards on tap—tough pulls even when accounting for potential rest days. It would take an epic implosion by Chicago to drop out of the bracket.

"I trust in these guys," Butler said. "I'm running with them until the end."

Which, even with a playoff bid, is shaping up to be sooner rather than later. 

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise cited. Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference or NBA.com and accurate leading into games April 10.