Time for the underachieving Bulls to grow up as the schedule toughens

When the season goal was the playoffs and the start of the schedule was filled with winnable games, the result was not supposed to be a 12-20 record. The next 11 games will test where this rebuild is in Year 3.

SHARE Time for the underachieving Bulls to grow up as the schedule toughens
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It all matters to Bulls coach Jim Boylen.

And that also applies to his team, which is still pushing toward a playoff berth this season despite a disappointing 12-20 record, Boylen told reporters Thursday.

“Our guys were focused and attentive to the standings when we played Orlando [in a 103-95 loss Monday],” he said. “They were talking about it. They were addressing it to each other, and it was important. 

“That was a big game to our group. And that’s important to us as a franchise, to me as a head coach, that we play in those meaningful games and games that matter for where you finish and where you’re at.

“It was a great moment for our team to be in that situation and handle some of that pressure, and I’m hoping we learn from it.”

This season’s NBA standings are about the haves and the have-nots, and the divide might be as big as it has been in years. That’s not exactly new for the Eastern Conference, but the fact that the West now has a sub-.500 team holding down the No. 8 spot speaks to just how non-competitive more than half the teams are. Last season, the Clippers took the No. 8 seed in the West with a 48-34 record, and two years ago, the Timberwolves needed to win a play-in game to get into the postseason with a 47-35 record.

As of Thursday afternoon, there were six teams still in single-digit wins.

Bad for the NBA product overall? Likely. But it’s good for the Bulls, who are one three-game winning streak away from suddenly slipping into the playoff standings in the East.

There’s a rub, of course, as there always is with the Bulls: A soft start to their schedule was supposed to mean they’d be in a playoff spot by Christmas, not chasing one. October and November were tailor-made for a 20-12 start, not the other way around.

And they have no quality wins. You can’t count their Dec. 14 victory over the Clippers, who were without Kawhi Leonard, Lou Williams and Patrick Beverly.

Boylen’s hope is that the quality wins will start coming now that the Bulls have made some progress.

“You don’t start with 10 things you are going to do,” he said. “You start with one or two. [First, we’re] going to be a good defensive team. Then I want to run, so our defense is set up where we can knock a couple of balls loose and maybe get out and run. Then we go to the scoring part of it. There’s a pattern with a 23-year-old team I wanted to have.”

If only the Bulls could skip ahead on some of those steps. Saturday is basically a bye game, considering how strongly they’ve dominated the Hawks. But then they enter a minefield with the Bucks, Jazz and Celtics coming to the United Center. The Bulls then travel to Dallas and New Orleans, come home to host the Pacers, then are back on the road to Detroit and Boston.

Of the Bulls’ next 10 opponents after the Hawks, seven are legitimate playoff contenders.

“We have played 22 close games, defined by the league as a five-point game with five minutes to go,” Boylen said. “We’ve had 22 of them, tied for most in the league with [the Thunder]. So we’ve played competitive basketball. We need to continue to grow in playing winning basketball. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

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