Oh, That’s Bull!

Derrick Rose was making his highly anticipated return, the Bulls drafted a couple promising rookies, and many Bulls fans as well as players were ready to win a championship in the 2013-14 season. If the Bulls keep playing the way they are all season though, they will be lucky if they are playoff contenders battling for the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference. Their season has not started the way that many expected and as a Bulls fan, I am starting to wonder if the Bulls have it in them to win at least 40 games. Currently, the Bulls are 1-3 and in the cellar of the Central division. Their one win was against the Knicks, but keep in mind they were trailing the entire game and barely won by a score of 82-81. They lost a heartbreaker to the 76ers in their third game of the year. They were up by nearly 20 points at the half, then they gave up that large lead and ended up losing by three points. From the games so far, I believe that the defense is a major problem for the Bulls. Defense is an overlooked part of the game., If your team scores 110 points and the other team scores 120, that does not do you any good. One player in particular is Carlos Boozer. Every game, he will score 20 points and get at least 7 or 8 rebounds. Those statistics are deceiving though because the player he defends has scored more points than him almost every game. The Bulls are really lacking a three-point presence and that is really hurting them offensively. When I watched their game against the Heat, it seemed like they just kept chucking up threes without any success. It was Robinson and Bellineli last season and it was Kyle Korver the year before. Mike Dunleavy is not shooting as well as he usually is and that forces Luol Deng, Derrick Rose, and Jimmy Butler to pick up the slack from behind the arc. Deng needs to be open to shoot threes, Rose has lost his three-point shot, and Butler only makes them once in a while. They need someone to step up and take control of the team’s three-point shooting. The Bulls did not even put up a fight against Miami and Indiana and they lost both games by a double-digit margin. They were playing catch-up the entire game and never took a commanding lead. Tonight the Bulls will go up against the 0-5 Utah Jazz. I am expecting a good win from the Bulls and anything less would be a huge disappointment to me. They have to jump out to a lead early and hold off the Jazz late. The Bulls have blown their last two games after the second half and that cannot happen tonight. Hopefully the Bulls could return to normal and still reach the 50-win plateau.