NEWSLETTER
I would recommend sitting down for this one. Ready?
The Chicago Bulls are the third-best defensive team in the NBA.
Yup, for real.
While they may not pass the eye-test, the Bulls currently hold a 104.2 defensive rating this season, which ranks behind only the Milwaukee Bucks (101.3) and Toronto Raptors (104.0). So, in other words, the Bulls may actually be pretty decent at something.
(Michael: Indeed, even if you think these numbers are some what out of whack for where we are in the season, defense is CLEARLY not the liability we thought it may be at the start of the season)
Chicago used a much improved month of December to climb up the rankings. At the end of November, the Bulls held the 14th-best defensive rating in the league, which already felt like a bit of an inflation, considering our expectations. But over this past month, Chicago has gone 7-6, while holding opponents to 100.6 points per game.
This defensive effort has meant the second-best defensive rating specifically in the month of December, at 99.8!
So what’s to credit for the improvement? Well, an impressive ability to force turnovers, for one. As it stands, the Bulls are first in steals (9.9) and opponent turnovers per game (18.4). And in total, they have 607 turnovers, which is 55(!) more than the second-place Golden State Warriors.
And to give the team even more credit, they’ve used these turnovers to their advantage by scoring 20.5 percent of their points off them.
20.5% of the Bulls' points this season have come off of turnovers, by far the most in the NBA.
The gap between them and 2nd-ranked Toronto (17.4%) is about the same as the difference between the Raps and the 24th-ranked Pistons (14.2%)
— Rob Schaefer (@rob_schaef) December 30, 2019
Indeed, for a team that sits at 13-20, the defense has been arguably the most positive takeaway of the season.
However, despite all these fancy-schmancy numbers, giving the Bulls a whole lot of credit still doesn’t feel right. And there happens to be a very specific reason for that.
To this point, the Bulls have also played one of the easiest schedules in the entire NBA. Take a look at ESPN Strength of Schedule rankings, and Chicago is dead last at 46.9 percent. Also, feel free to check out Power Rankings Guru, who gives the strength of schedule based on average opponent NBA rank (the Bulls are also last, battling opponents who hold an average of 18.14). To put this in perspective, the Bulls have played 12 of their 33 games against six of the seven teams with the worst offensive ratings in the league (the one missing is Chicago).
Now, this doesn’t completely undermine the performance – indeed, good defenses should dominate the worst offenses, and that’s exactly what the Bulls have done. But they have also played 10 games against top-10 offenses, as well.
And even if you set the strength of schedule aside, this is an impressive feat. Heading into this season, we all had no idea where this Bulls defense would be, but I think any reasonable guess would have picked third-to-worst before third-to-best. The offense was supposedly the side of the ball with the most upside, but with the 28th-ranked offensive rating, that clearly wasn’t the case. It’s opposite world.
What the Bulls have done thus far (strictly on defense) is a welcomed surprise, deserving of praise. I’d just be cautious on how long it’ll last. The Bulls upcoming January is packed with 9 of 17 games against opponents that hold an above .500 record. Not to mention, three of the Bulls’ next four games are against the No. 2 (Bucks), No. 4 (Celtics), and No. 1 (Mavericks) offenses in basketball.
Keeping this up defensive identity is only going to get harder as the season goes on, so while it’s fun to see this team at the top of the leaderboards in at least one area, I’m not going to get used to it. Not yet.
