CLEVELAND — Alex Caruso is very aware that he is long gone from the 2020 Lakers, who won the NBA title.
That doesn’t mean the guard can’t set the bar to a certain height and hold his Bulls teammates responsible for reaching for those expectations.
After all, with 28 games left, the story isn’t completely written on this season — not even close.
“We’ve still got to come back after the [All-Star] break and play 20-some games,” Caruso said. “There’s still a lot in front of us to play for.”
First things first.
Caruso missed the game against the Hawks with a sore left foot, received another day of treatment Tuesday, and will test it again during the Wednesday morning shootaround.
If he can’t go against the Cavaliers, that will give him more than a week to get his body right during the break.
That’s also when the business of basketball has to pick up for the Bulls. While teams in the Eastern Conference like the Knicks and Cavs have gone on long winning streaks, consistently winning basketball has been hard for this team to lock into.
In Caruso’s estimation some of that has been because of injuries changing the look of the rotations so frequently, but also just some of the matchups they’ve run into and an inability to adjust when it matters most.
“We’ve been a little unlucky with some of the injuries but you really can’t count that as an excuse or put it too much into the equation just because it’s random and unfortunate,” Caruso said. “The starting lineup has changed, so there are groupings that just haven’t played a lot of minutes together.
“That’s why you see us do a little more with the ‘Jumbo Lineup’ with Drum [Andre Drummond] and Vooch [Nikola Vucevic] just because putting two bigs in there covers up a lot of our interior weaknesses. Some of it is time together and the other part is just matchups. Orlando finished the game [Saturday] with four 6-9, 6-10 guys. We don’t have a lineup right now that can match that. A lot of the NBA is matchup and being able to compete through stuff because a lot of stuff is going to be out of your control. You just got to go with the flow.”
Even when that flow is filled with some obstacles.
Sitting in the No. 9 spot in the conference standings, the Bulls have the 12th-toughest schedule remaining, playing against teams with a combined .508 winning percentage. The teams chasing the Bulls — Atlanta, Toronto and Brooklyn — each have easier schedules, and then there’s the teams the Bulls are looking to catch and jump.
Whatever the issues are for the Bulls, they must be figured out if this is going to go anywhere but a play-in tournament appearance.
That’s also why Caruso isn’t even close to giving up on his teammates. In his estimation, you don’t fall behind “20-some points to the likes of Sacramento and Minnesota [as they did last week], only to come back and make it a game if we weren’t locked in and playing for each other.”
That’s his message every day with this group: Keep doing the little things right.
That’s also a message he has to make sure he practices and not just preaches.
“I’ve got to try and pull guys with me,” Caruso said. “That’s something I’ve tried to echo the last couple games. At some point in games someone is going to be struggling, whether they’re not making shots or giving up easy baskets. You’ve got to pull them with you.
“That’s the leadership aspect of this. We pull each other up and honestly, I like our chances.”
