Needing a Win, One More with the Pacers, Alex Caruso Guards Everyone, and Other Bulls Bullets

*scratches long, disheveled beard and grabs a piece of chalk*

*crosses out another game on the cave wall*

*sits back on ground, grabs knees, rocks back and forth*

Nine more games. Nine more games. Nine more games.

  • Look, I want to enjoy the home stretch of this season. Life with basketball is so much better than life without it. But the Chicago Bulls aren’t making it easy. Right when it looks like they sneak back to .500 and end the year with some sort of momentum, they stumble into a three-game losing streak. Even worse, the most recent loss came against the Washington Wizards – arguably the worst team in the NBA. Not too long ago we were discussing whether this evening’s game could help the Bulls take one heroic stab at the No. 8 seed. Instead, we’re now left wondering if the Bulls can avoid tumbling into the No. 10 spot.
  • The Atlanta Hawks’ schedule is tough, which is why the Bulls are still heavily favored to finish ahead of them in the regular season standings. But we also just watched Chicago lose to a 14-win team, while Atlanta took down a 57-win team. Not to mention, as the playoff picture becomes increasingly clear, you never know which players will rest on which nights over the next couple of weeks. Anyway, if the Bulls don’t want to do some scoreboard-watching to finish out the year, taking down the Pacers tonight would go a long way.
  • The Chicago Bulls have played surprisingly well against the Indiana Pacers this season. They’ve taken them down in two of their three matchups thus far, and a big reason for that has been their downhill mentality. Indiana allows the second-most points per game at 120.9. Of course, they also happen to score the single-most points per game at 123.3, which is why they hold a solid 41-32 record this year. Still, Chicago has multiple scorers who can get into the teeth of the defense. Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, and DeMar DeRozan have each found success against this porous perimeter defense. Heck, even Alex Caruso scored 23 points on Indiana in their March 13 victory!
  • If the Bulls want to win tonight, ensuring that they take full advantage of the Pacers’ poor defense is key. And, yes, this includes passing the ball to Nikola Vucevic! He dropped 24 points and 17 rebounds on Indiana in their last meeting. I remain baffled by the fact that he took just 5 shot attempts against the Wizards on Monday night, who have given up the most points in the paint per game this season. The Pacers give up the second-most, so this is a prime opportunity for the big man to bounce back.
  • Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers scoring on the Chicago Bulls
    (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)

  • The free throw line could also prove essential. Chicago was able to muck things up in their two victories this season, getting the charity stripe for at least 31 attempts in each game. Indiana plays at the second-highest PACE in the league, so the more the Bulls can control the speed of play and level of physicality, the more likely they are to win.
  • I’d talk about defense, but I honestly think that keeping up offensively is more than half the battle with the Pacers team. They’re so talented on that end of the floor that there just isn’t much a team can do to slow them down. Will Chicago need to get stops down the stretch? Absolutely. But they’ll need to ensure their score is close for that to even matter.
  • I know you’re not excited about the current Bulls, so at least allow yourself to get a little bit excited about the draft …
  • Alex Caruso is amazing at defense … EXHIBIT W:
  • We’ve talked about it all season long, but the sheer amount of chaos Caruso is able to create at his height is pretty darn remarkable. If you go and look at his head-to-head matchup data, he’s held bigger bodies like Scottie Barnes, Jayson Tatum, Paolo Banchero, and Kevin Durant to subpar shooting performances this season. Crazy stuff.
  • ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that big man Mitchell Robinson is close to returning for the New York Knicks. This would be a pretty huge boost to the rotation considering the continued absence of both OG Anunoby and Julius Randle. The Bulls have to see the Knicks THREE times in the final six games of the season, for what it’s worth.
  • Another hometown hooper has been balling out for the Windy City Bulls. The team shared a fun feature of Keifer Sykes here. The part where he’s chowing down with his kids at Portillo’s is precious. You can see how happy they are to have him back in Chicago.
  • That Onuralp Bitim signature shoe gonna hit different!
  • This was a tremendous response …
  • written by

    Elias Schuster is the Lead Chicago Bulls writer at Bleacher Nation. He started with BN full-time in 2019 immediately after graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign with a degree in Journalism (yes, he started with the Jim Boylen Era). Since joining, Elias has been the driving force behind Bulls and NBA content for both the site and social accounts. You can follow him on Twitter/X @Schuster_Elias.

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