Chicago Bulls Confident Improved Health Will Turn Season Around
CHICAGO — On Tuesday, Tom Thibodeau cancelled practice. The Chicago Bulls’ coach decided his team was too banged-up after a stretch of seven games in 11 days, one that’s seen the team fall from the class of the Eastern Conference to an underachieving group with concerning problems.
Instead of practicing, Thibodeau called a meeting. He wanted everybody on the roster to have their say about where the team is, and how it can get better. He also didn’t want to call a practice when not everybody could participate. There have been too many of those this season, and they’ve hurt the Bulls’ chemistry.
Observing practice at the Advocate Center on Wednesday, you wouldn’t know the Bulls had lost six of their last eight games. You wouldn’t know that whispers, however distant, have started that Thibodeau may be on the hot seat. You wouldn’t know that many people around the league who had picked this team to win the East were jumping ship.
Despite all the drama, the talk at practice was of an impending turnaround and improving health. Mike Dunleavy participated in practice, and could make his return on Thursday at home against the San Antonio Spurs.
Thibodeau is finally admitting what he’s refused to acknowledge for two years: that injuries to his best players do take a toll on the team. In the past, through two seasons with no Derrick Rose and with other players battling injuries, Thibodeau’s motto has always been: “We have more than enough to win.”
That was fine when the Bulls were without the 2010-11 league MVP, and any playoff success at all was icing on the cake. Now that the title expectations are back, the Bulls don’t have more than enough to reach their goals unless everybody is healthy. And they haven’t been.
Dunleavy has missed the last 10 games with an ankle injury, and Joakim Noah has battled knee and ankle issues all year. Rose’s play is still inconsistent as he works his way back from two knee surgeries in two seasons.
“We’ve only had our starting lineup for 15 games this year,” said Thibodeau. “So I’m surprised we’ve been able to do what we’ve done thus far. But that’s our reality, we’re getting guys back now, and then we go from there.”
It was a different tack from the one he’s taken in recent weeks. as the losses have mounted and red flags have piled up. Game after game throughout the recent down stretch, Thibodeau has called out his players for slacking on defense and getting off to slow starts.
On Tuesday, he took a different tack, spinning the recent struggles not as a failure but as a triumph considering how shorthanded they’ve been.
“If you would have told me that we would be 27-16 with all the guys missing all the games that we’ve missed, and the practices we’ve missed, I would have been surprised,” he said. “So I’m proud of the fight these guys have, we gotta bounce back, we gotta get that fight back in us, and I think we will.”
Thursday’s game against the Spurs will be the Bulls’ next test. Seemingly every game for the last two weeks has been talked up as a wakeup call, a time for the team to rediscover its urgency. Ugly losses to the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards were followed up with more losses, to the Orlando Magic and then to the Wizards again. After Saturday’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks, players spoke of needing to get their edge back. Then, they lost in Cleveland to the Cavaliers on Monday. Rose called the inconsistency "f---ing irritating," just the latest player to vent his frustration at the Bulls' play.
The Spurs are the latest shot at redemption, but things don’t get much easier from there. Between now and the All-Star break, they face the Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and the Cavaliers again. And they can talk all they want about needing to find their edge again, but they know they can’t be mentioned in the same sentence as those teams until the talk translates into wins.
“There’s potential but there’s still a lot to do,” said Pau Gasol. “I think this is a stretch where it could be utilized to grow, to see what we’re made of, to see how bad do we want it and so, that’s my approach to it. I think it’s good to go through this type of stretch early in the season and not later.”
The effort hasn’t been there, but the inconsistency in the Bulls’ lineup hasn’t helped matters, either. With Dunleavy on the brink of a return and Noah on the mend, they’re hopeful that a full roster will mean a return to form. After years of making do with whatever they have on hand, they now know that they need all hands on deck to be the team they’re capable of being.
Sean Highkin covers the Chicago Bulls for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @highkin
