The Bulls' Third Quarter: Raise the roof (on expectations)

Once again, the Bulls have gone through another quarter of their schedule and emerged having only lost five games. But unlike the last time I did one of these, when a majority of the schedule seemed fairly soft, the past 21 games have involved playing against some legitimate contenders. So it's certainly surprising that Chicago came away with not a loss more than the number they recorded over the previous 20 games.

But with the exposure gained following Sunday's victory and season sweep of the season's initially presumed monster, the Miami Heat (and subsequent "Crygate" fallout), basketball is quickly becoming the talk of the town once again. Last night's game against the New Orleans Hornets—minus the team's star, Chris Paul—delivered the highest Bulls game rating in Comcast SportsNet's history.

And you can certainly count me in for joining in the hype. (NOTE: This just arrived as I was typing that. Seriously.) I've got plans on going to the game this Saturday when the team will be honoring the 20th anniversary of the first championship squad. Somewhat ironically, they'll be playing the Utah Jazz, the franchise I compared the Bulls to in my predictions for this season. But now being just a couple games back from possibly going into the playoffs as the top seed in the Eastern Conference, this team's got just good a shot as any other to end up in the Finals this year.  

RECORD FOR THE QUARTER: 16-5 (44-18 OVERALL) — Same number of losses, but one additional win this quarter. And like I mentioned in the Blackhawks' last update, this is the time of year when conference standings begin to take precedence over division standings—especially here since the Bulls have had the Central all but sewn up for weeks. Chicago is actually looking to become the first team in league history to sweep its entire division—although that should be taken with a certain grain of salt since the NBA only went to the current six division alignment a little over a half-decade ago. Still, if somebody's gotta' do it, you want it to be your team. And more importantly, in that said conference race, the Bulls are only two-and-a-half games behind the now Perkins-less Celtics.

BEST WIN: February 17 (Bulls 109, Spurs 99) — While this past quarter featured not one, but two more close and thrilling victories over the much-hated Heat, it's hard for me to ignore how good it felt to go into the All-Star break with a nationally televised victory over the team with the league's best record. Derrick Rose had a career-high 42 points in addition to eight assists and five rebounds, but more importantly, only turned the ball over once despite the occasional triple teams from San Antonio. And sure, the Spurs were finishing up a grueling nine-game rodeo road trip and were playing finishing playing 12 of their last 13 on the road, but the Bulls were also still without Joakim Noah while going into this one. Chicago also beat San Antonio on the boards, outrebounding them 41-29, which helped lead to crucially crushing the Spurs in second chance points, 20-5. Luol Deng also quietly added another top-of-the-line supporting performance with 19 points, seven rebounds and five assists. And perhaps most importantly, Taj Gibson and Omer Asik combined to limit Tim Duncan to just 14 points and nine rebounds. Again, with only one other game on this particular night before the All-Star break, it was a contest that was widely seen—hopefully by those with MVP ballots, since another star performance from Rose was what helped, as San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said, negate 99 points on 49 percent shooting with seven threes from the league-leading Spurs.

WORST LOSS: February 23 (Raptors 118, Bulls 113) — In the first game back from the aforementioned All-Star break that also marked the return of Joakim Noah, the Bulls apparently left their defense at customs while going into Canada. The Raptors, a team that had only won 15 games coming into the contest and lost 18 of their previous 20, didn't have too much of a problem scoring in this one and amassing 118 points. Their 58.1 percent shooting for the game was a season high for any Bulls opponent, and Toronto made more than half the shots they took in every quarter. The Raptors had an astonishing 58 points in the paint this game, and while Joakim Noah grabbed 16 rebounds in his return, a large number of them were boards he grabbed on his own missed shots and tipped back. The bottom line here is that we saw what happens when the Bulls abandon what has more often than not been the league's best defense. When the team gets into a shootout—even with a distinctly below-average team such as Toronto—they're hurting their own chances. When Jordan declared the oft-repeated mantra of "defense wins championships" following that first Bulls title in 1991, this particular game could go a long way toward proving why.

MVP: Derrick Rose — Oh, I was tempted once again to name somebody different here just to change up the segment for once, but seeing as I'm now fully entrenched in the campaign to get the Bulls point guard named league MVP this season, it would seem to be slightly counterintuitive to put anyone else here. Consider that over the most recent span, Rose was the only Bull named to the All-Star team (and a starter, no less) and had the aforementioned career-high 42-point night against the league-leading Spurs. He still leads the team in scoring (24.6 PPG) and assists (8.1 APGLuol Deng had a number of big games and key moments this past quarter. And actually, Omer Asik might not have any big numbers, but his performance against Dwight Howard in the last game versus Orlando showed why other teams expressed interest in trying to pry the Turkish center from the Bulls.

LVP: Brian Scalabrine — If I couldn't bring myself to change Rose's status as MVP for the third straight quarter, I guess there might not be a better time to give Keith Bogans a break from his usual LVP designation. Poor Brian Scalabrine is largely relegated to being an in-uniform cheerleader, he saw his least on-court action this past quarter. Consider, over the past 21 games he amassed a total of two-and-a-half minutes played. In those three games he made appearances, Scalabrine put up only two shots—although he made one of them, albeit just for two points. The rest of his line reads like this: one turnover and one personal foul. No assists, no steals, no rebounds, nothing else. So, sorry there, Brian. But as far as contributions to the team go, that's barely above the bare minimum.

THREE THINGS I'VE LIKED SO FAR:

1. GET THAT WEAK SHIT OUTTA' HERE! — The defense leads the league both in points allowed per game (91.5) and opponent field goal percentage (.428). Even the Bulls' opponents points per shot (1.15) are only one-hundredth of a point behind the league-leading Lakers.
2. THE REMAINING SCHEDULE ISN'T ALL THAT DAUNTING — There's two games with Atlanta in March, and dates with Boston, Orlando and New York within the final five games of the season, but some (I can't find a source to link to, but seem to recall ESPN having said it ...) have called the Bulls' remaining schedule the third-easiest in the NBA. That's comforting since ...
3. THERE'S STILL HOPE FOR THE TOP SPOT IN THE EAST — Home-court's twice as important for Chicago, seeing as the Bulls are only 17-14 on the road but 27-4 at the United Center. Additionally, the path to the Finals will be wildly different for a No. 1 seed as opposed to the two or three, which means ...

THINGS I HAVEN'T:

1. IT'LL BE TOUGH IF THEY DON'T GET THAT TOP SPOT — The sub-.500 Indiana Pacers currently occupy the No. 8 spot in the conference and are obviously the most favorable opening round matchup for whichever team gets the No. 1 seed. And while the Philadelphia 76ers at No. 7 don't appear to present all that much of a stiffer first round challenge, the Knicks at No. 6 will give fits to whomever finishes third—not to mention that the winner of that series plays whomever comes out of that second versus seventh-seed matchup. So essentially the best record in the conference paves the way to a weak Pacers team likely to be followed by whichever exhausted bunch comes away from an Orlando-Atlanta series that could likely go seven games. The bottom line, I suppose, is that whichever team gets the No. 1 seed has to be by default considered the favorite to get all the way to the Finals.
2. DERRICK ROSE DOESN'T GET THE CALLS — Too often in games this season, I have found myself noticing that in his mad slashes toward the basket, Rose absorbs the sort of contact that otherwise elite players would find themselves at the line for. But as others have noted, perhaps because Rose just isn't considered an elite player yet, he doesn't get those calls. I suppose the upside is that he doesn't whine about it either, but I'd like to see him start getting more opportunities to add an extra point to the oftentimes sensational scores.
3. THE CHARITY STRIPE — I've bemoaned this statistic many times over, and the catastrophic performance we got from both the Lakers and the Celtics in last year's Game Seven finale only reinforced the notion to me. So now that we're talking about playoffs and getting expectations up here, this a category the Bulls absolutely need to improve on if they're indeed going to go all the way. Currently, their .735 percentage from the free throw line is bottom-five level stuff, ranking 26th in the league.

25 WORDS OR LESS:

The expectations can't get much higher when we're actually talking about getting to the Finals THIS YEAR, not next.