With roughly one-quarter of the 2021-22 regular-season remaining, the Chicago Bulls sit 39-21, and in a tie with the Miami Heat for first place in the Eastern Conference. Given the recent avalanche of injuries they’ve endured, it’s an impressive feat.
But a gauntlet awaits down the stretch.
According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Bulls’ final 22 games constitute the NBA’s most difficult remaining schedule. Twelve of those games are against current playoff teams (i.e. top six in their conference). Thirteen are on the road.
The returns of Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso and Patrick Williams will eventually offer reinforcements. But, regardless of how healthy his team is able to get in the coming weeks, the scheduling deck the Bulls face is a dynamic head coach Billy Donovan relishes.
“Everybody's in a position that everybody's fighting for something. And these are great tests and great opportunities for us to try to improve and get better,” Donovan said before Thursday’s matchup with the Atlanta Hawks.
“I like the fact that the schedule is so hard, because if you want to be a team that's gonna play after the regular season, those games are really, really hard. You have to deal with hard. And we've got to be able to do that.”
Donovan was quick to add the Bulls have handled adversity — in the form of a team-wide COVID-19 outbreak in December, and a brutal slate of injuries starting in January — well so far this season.
But it’s also fair to note that, shorthanded or not, this is a team that has slipped to 19th in defensive rating after spending most of October, November and December in the top 10, and rolls into Saturday’s matchup with the Memphis Grizzlies with a 6-13 record against the top six teams in each conference (2-8 against the East, with the wins coming over Boston on Nov. 1 and Cleveland on Jan. 19).
“I just want to go out there and win. It doesn’t matter who we play, 30th team in the league or the No. 1 team in the league,” Zach LaVine said after the Bulls’ morning shootaround. “Each and every night an NBA team can beat you. Obviously (some) teams have better records (than others), but I’m worried about myself and if we play the way Bulls basketball is — guys go out there and play their roles the right way — I think we match up against anybody.”
To that point, Donovan stressed the Bulls must use the stretch run to improve defensively. LaVine added that reintegrating injured players once their respective rehabs are complete will be crucial.
And results must follow, with the East’s top six teams separated by just four games as of this writing. Seeding will be paramount for this Bulls team as they gear up for their first postseason run as a unit — not only to secure the most advantageous matchups possible, but also to ensure as many high-leverage home games as possible.
At 24-8, the Bulls own the best home record in the Eastern Conference, and though their 15-13 mark on the road is respectable, it also marks the third-widest disparity between home and road winning percentage in the league, behind just the Pacers and Lakers (meaning the Bulls’ disparity is the widest amongst winning teams).
It's not to say the Bulls are a bad road team, or can't win away from home in the postseason — rather, the evidence suggests they're at their most dominant in Chicago.
“I just know, for me personally, I haven’t felt the United Center feel like this,” LaVine said. “It’s gonna be a treat to see later on in the year.”
How well the Bulls are positioned later in the year will depend on how productively they attack the tough road in front of them.
“Obviously you want to get to the playoffs and a championship goals, you’re gonna have to play the best teams,” LaVine said. “It doesn’t matter when or where we’re playing, you gotta end up playing and beating those guys if you want to be one of those good teams.”
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February 25, 2022 at 03:00PM
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Bulls relish challenge of difficult pre-playoff schedule - NBC Sports Chicago
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