The Chicago Bulls are 2-2.
How, you ask? Well, Alex Caruso is one reason. His game-winning shot against the Toronto Raptors secured the Bulls one of the drunkest victories you’ll ever see. As for the second win, that’s what I thought we’d discuss a little more here.
Chicago’s victory against Indiana was both completely unconvincing and potentially a sign of improvement. With that in mind, I wanted to touch on the bad and the less bad (I’m not sure we can call it good) of the Bulls’ offensive performance.
Let’s start with the easier of the two!
The Bad
The Chicago Bulls currently hold the 24th-ranked offensive rating in the NBA. And, if we’re being honest, that feels generous. They hold the league’s worst effective field-goal percentage at 46.5 percent, and Cleaning the Glass has their halfcourt offense scoring just the 28th-most in points per 100 possessions (83.2). Here, you can borrow mine … *hands you puke bag.*
The fit of this team’s “Big 3” continues to look wonky at best, especially with all three often preferring to share similar areas of the floor. The three-man lineup is currently a -6.5 over their first four games. Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan, in particular, have struggled to get into a rhythm at the same time. This was on full display again on Monday night, as the two combined for just 12-36 shooting from the field.
What really stood out against Indiana, however, was where the Bulls were taking their shots. Unlike in the previous three games, we saw zero effort made to increase more shots behind the arc. The Bulls shot just 17 total 3-pointers, which is the fewest attempts taken by any NBA team this season.
Instead, Chicago took 45 percent of their field goal attempts from the mid-range, per Cleaning the Glass. This meant only 18 percent of these shots came from long-range, which puts them in the league’s 0th percentile.
But it worked, right!? They won!? Honestly, I was concerned by how much I saw this narrative begin to spread after the game. Just because the Chicago Bulls were able to win a game like this doesn’t mean it’s a consistent recipe for success. Let’s not forget the Pacers helped them out tremendously by shooting 12-46 from behind the arc. And this included a 9-31 performance on wide-open 3s, per NBA Stats.
The NBA is a numbers game, folks. The whole reason there has been a major discussion about the need for increased 3-point volume is because of what we saw last season. Let’s not forget Chicago finished top-12 in EFG% in 2022-23 … but they still went 40-42. Why? Well, there are a handful of reasons, but one is that they continuously countered 3s with 2s. Some nights we saw the opponent shoot drastically worse than the Bulls, yet extra 3s won them the game.
In fact, a loss to the Indiana Pacers on March 5 proved to be a good example of this. Chicago shot 45.5 percent from downtown, while the Pacers shot just 36.4. What was one reason the Bulls still lost? They went 10-22, while Indiana went 16-44. That’s a +18 performance from downtown.
I also want to say that in no way can we use last night’s game as an example of how “elite” the Chicago Bulls are in the mid-range. They shot 35.9 percent (14-39) in this area of the floor, per Cleaning the Glass. In other words, they largely won despite their mid-range shooting and not because of it.
To be clear, I’m not saying I want to see the Bulls shoot 42 attempts from three like they did against OKC. I’m also not saying that somebody like DeMar DeRozan shouldn’t hunt his spots at times throughout the game. But the whole point coming into this season was to find a better balance offensively, and I’m surely hoping one win doesn’t make the Bulls forget that.
Taking 3s is still crucial if this offense is to make any significant improvements. Finding a way to at least hover around the league average (which is currently about 34 attempts per game) shouldn’t be difficult, especially with solid shooters like Zach LaVine, Coby White, Patrick Williams, Jevon Carter, and Torrey Craig in the rotation. If the main reason isn’t just to keep up with your opponents, it’s to also space out the defense accordingly and give your talented interior scorers even more room to work.
The Less Bad
Despite everything I just wrote above, yes, this was easily the Chicago Bulls’ best offensive performance of the season. While their shot profile may not be a method for sustained success, I do think we saw some things that can be translated into games moving forward.
First of all, the Bulls’ ability to get to the free-throw line should be considered a win. They went 26-31 from the charity stripe, and this included an 18-19 performance from Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. I was happy to see both recognize that this Pacers defense has struggled to keep opponents out of the paint, especially as the game entered the second half.
Relatedly, we saw the Bulls take advantage of Nikola Vucevic’s size in the paint. While in some games – OKC, for instance – we’ve seen the Bulls simply forget to get him involved, they made an effort to feed him consistently. Now, I’m not saying Vucevic should be getting 19 shots a night like in his Orlando days, but you need to rely on him in some matchups more than others. This battle with Indiana’s frontcourt was one of those matchups, and Vucevic feasted for a 10-19 showing with 24 points and 17 rebounds.
Overall, mid-range dependency aside, I do think the Bulls played not-totally-dumb basketball for the first time this season. Even if the ball wasn’t popping as much as we’d like to see, they moved with purpose and shared the wealth decently well. And, most importantly, this showed up in crunch time.
From the 3:46 mark to the 1:56 mark in the 4th quarter, we saw the Bulls go on a 9-3 run to take a 108-102 lead. Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic each scored, and they all did so in the paint. Some might see the one assist during that stretch and assume nothing has changed. But, in my opinion, there is a difference between ISO Ball and Decisive Ball.
The Bulls weren’t standing around and watching either LaVine or DeRozan take someone off the dribble to finish out this game. They got up on the floor quickly and didn’t hesitate to set someone up to go downhill. This was evidently part of the crunch time gameplan, and Steph Noh of Sporting News did a great job pointing that out in the video below:
Head coach Billy Donovan also commented on this after the game. While it may not have felt like the flashy offense this team touted in the offseason, we did see a semblance of an offensive identity with the Chicago Bulls putting consistent pressure on the rim.
“I think the mentality was that we wanted to play downhill. I was encouraged with how we played because of the quick decisions, and I thought we sustained it,” Donovan told reporters. “And I thought the last kind of 6 minutes, Zach, DeMar, Vooch, we play called a lot of stuff to put those guys in those situations.”
Donovan later continued …
“Even if there wasn’t a lot of passes, it was decisive. The minute we try to hold the ball and size defenders up, the floor shrinks, everybody is helping and it’s really really hard to play like that … I don’t know if we had a lot of ball movement, but we had a lot more quicker decisions.”
Look, when things slow down at the end of games, you need your stars to be stars. This is naturally going to lead to some ISO ball. What was different about last night, however, was how assertive and calculated the Bulls’ decision-making was in crunch time. They knew when and who to attack. In other words, the idea wasn’t to get it to DeClosin’ and stand back. They also seemed to recognize that getting all three involved would lead to less predictable possessions.
Now, does this mean I think the Bulls offense has found its groove? Absolutely not … just go back and read the whole first section. But I do think there were some positives to take away from this fourth game of the regular season.
Whether they can build upon that, who knows?