Bulls Improve To A Perfect 8-0 When They Reach This Mark
The Chicago Bulls have reached the 25-game mark, and although their record reflects a mediocre 11-14 standing, there’s a clear path to winning ways. The Bulls have notoriously struggled this year from behind the three-point line, but the few times they’ve shot it well have led to victories. After their win over the Dallas Mavericks, they now boast an impeccable 8-0 record during games that they reach the 40% mark from downtown, including tonight’s blistering 55%. It seems like a direct correlation that could turn around the entire season, previewed by a franchise-record 82-point highlight reel first half on Saturday night.
Making It Rain
Chicago has been treacherous the entire season from deep, including shooting the league’s least three-point attempts as a team and shooting them at a rate in the bottom third of the NBA. The key to turning the season around is changing those numbers, or at least the latter. When shooting 40% from three-point territory, they stand at an NBA-best 8-0 and there’s no traceable pattern to when these games happen. They’ve come at home, on the road, against the best and the worst opponents on their schedule, and the last thing for head coach Billy Donovan to do is figure out how to replicate that shooting success more frequently than eight out of the 25 games thus far. Against the Mavericks, for instance, the Bulls made ten threes in the first half and shot over 65% on those attempts.
A few key things stand out in trying to find an answer for coach Donovan. First, the Bulls play from the post. Offensively, they average the most points per paint possession in the league. With center Nikola Vucevic being a 35% career three-point shooter, the floor is stretched by every position for Chicago. Zach Lavine is a nearly 40% career shooter from deep, and Patrick Williams, shooting over 50% in his last ten contests, also helps contribute to these numbers. Assists are another straight-line to better shooting, against Dallas coming out of the gate assisting nine of their first ten baskets, including dimes on the first six threes that splashed home. Without injured point guard Lonzo Ball, who led this squad to a number one seed in the Eastern Conference last year before his injury, the Bulls have failed to fill the team-leading 5.1 assists per game void he’s left. It’s also alarming that the next three team leaders in assists per game last year have all had fewer assists per contest during the first part of the 2022-23′ season. Donovan’s most recent attempt has been his best so far; inserting Alex Caruso into the starting lineup has plugged a selfless and intelligent offensive glue guy who had nine assists in their last victory and averages four per game.
Forgetting The Noise
The buzz around the world surrounding the Chicago Bulls has been nothing short of a mauling. From trade proposals to rebuild propositions to personnel firings, searching up the word “Bulls” will produce no shortage of negative rumors. However, someone might’ve forgotten to spread the news to the team because they’ve played with a flare that’s been missing since last year’s successful campaign. Starting with the hottest of seats because of his newly signed max contract, Zach Lavine dropped 41 points in the nine-point loss at the hands of the Sacramento Kings, but things still weren’t quite right. Lavine’s scoring was one of the few positive takeaways, only assisting less than half of their made attempts and only making nine threes in the game as a team. After the demoralizing trip along the west coast, they took on the Washington Wizards in the United Center, and got back in the win column by the score of 115-110 after some late-game heroics from Caruso and the door-slamming free-throws courtesy of DeMar DeRozan. Staying on the home court, they shot out of a cannon and beat the Dallas Mavericks in a game that started 24-6 in Chicago’s favor and was a commanding victory from start to finish.
Sustainability has been another glaring issue for this team all season long; they’ve only won back-to-back games four times over the year and have yet to win three in a row. Seemingly two separate groups during wins versus losses, Donovan finding a way to get the better of the two to show up more consistently is a must. They’ve got an impressive 5-2 standing against the last four Eastern Conference victors but are also somehow an abysmal 1-11 on games that fall on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Unfortunately, the NBA is not a Monday through Friday job, and failure to present their best package every night has been the demise of a very talented but underperforming crew.
Stacey King’s got that fire back in his voice, and the hot sauce has been called upon a lot lately. Watching the team in Phoenix a few nights ago during Devin Booker’s 50-point walk in the park, it’s shocking that the same roster dominated the Mavs tonight. Heading to Atlanta tomorrow against a similarly struggling Hawks squad, followed by a less-than-stellar Knicks team in a back-to-back after that, the Bulls have a real shot of getting some traction in time for Ball to return and bring them back into the playoff picture. Is this a sign of things to come?