Chicago Bulls Still Far from Playing at Championship Level
CHICAGO—On Saturday night, the Chicago Bulls caught a glimpse of the level at which they have to play to compete for a title. They also had the truth reinforced, that they aren’t close to there yet.
The Bulls saw what a championship-level team looks like on Saturday night, in a 112-102 loss to a Golden State Warriors team that was firing on all cylinders. The Warriors were everything the Bulls need to be in order to compete in June. They executed at both ends of the floor, forced 22 turnovers and knocked down 12 three-pointers.
“Against a team like this, mistakes have to be minimized,” Pau Gasol said after the game. "Tonight they weren’t.”
It wasn’t just this game that was a cause for concern. The Bulls have yet to put together one start-to-finish impressive performance against a playoff team. Players have been in and out of the lineup, which has hurt their continuity. Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah are still limited to around 30 minutes per game, and Taj Gibson just recently returned from an ankle injury that had sidelined him the previous six games.
“We’ve got a lot of newer guys, a lot of young guys,” said Gibson. “They’ve got to figure out the system. We’ve got to have that trust. Guys aren’t having each other’s backs. We’ve got to fix that because these games are going to keep coming, and nobody’s going to feel sorry for you.”
The Bulls are 2-5 at home, losing four of their last five games at the United Center. It’s the most troubling part of their recent struggles, and nobody can quite put their finger on it. Even without Rose, the Bulls went 27-14 on their home floor in each of the last two seasons. But their home-court advantage has evaporated.
“It is becoming an issue,” said Gasol. “It is not good to lose at home. You have to protect your home court. Your home court has to be a fortress. Teams should be afraid of coming to play here and know that they are going to have a long night. Now, there is a certain level of confidence they come with. We are going to have to cut it out very quickly.”
Gasol and Jimmy Butler have been the two bright spots in a Bulls offense that has otherwise failed to click. Rose is playing every day now, but he’s still working to regain confidence in his body. He shot 2-of-11 from the field on Saturday, scoring all nine of his points in the first quarter. He’s been settling for jump shots rather than attacking the rim.
“He’s got to attack,” Tom Thibodeau said. “That’s what his strength is.”
The Bulls have the 10th-best defense in the NBA, allowing 102.6 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com, but that’s well below what they’ve come to expect from themselves, and what they’ve been able to do for four years under Thibodeau. Around the locker room on Saturday, the message was consistent: everything has to be better.
“Defensively, we’ve been not great,” said Noah. “We have to step it up. I have to step it up. We will. Everyone is frustrated right now because we know that we’re better than what we’ve been. We’ve got a ways to go, but we’ve just got to believe in each other and keep grinding. We have to change our ways, because defensively we all know it’s not where it needs to be.”
“We recognize we have to do a better job,” Gasol added. “Defensively right now, we’re not at our best. We are not where we want to be. We have to make a conscious effort on getting better. Teams have gotten their way too easily against us and that has to change.”
It was never going to be easy for the Bulls, but as the NBA landscape is starting to take shape, they know who they have to be able to compete with. The Eastern Conference was widely assumed before the season to be a two-team race between the Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers, but the Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors have both been more consistent.
And that’s to say nothing of the Western Conference powerhouses the Bulls have struggled with. Since returning home from their road trip, they’ve lost to the Warriors and Dallas Mavericks, two offensive juggernauts with enough firepower to take advantage of the Bulls’ current defensive weaknesses. And that’s to say nothing of the Memphis Grizzlies.
These are the teams the Bulls have to compete with if they want to fulfill their championship aspirations. So far, they’ve been a notch below that competition.
Gibson laid down the bottom line after Saturday’s game:
“If we’re going to do what we said we’re going to do, which is go out and play for a championship, we can’t let these things happen. Being lackadaisical on defense, not trusting each other, we’ve got to put more pressure on ourselves.”
Nothing’s going to come easy for the Bulls in December. Throughout the rest of the month, they face the Raptors, Grizzlies, Wizards and Portland Trail Blazers. The games, and the championship-level opponents, keep coming. As of now, the Bulls know they aren’t ready.
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