Is this the year??
We all knew the Bulls were playing over their heads last season. And coming into this season we all knew they were going to regress to a mean ol' mean and be a long shot to sneak back into the playoffs. But after watching them through the the first four games, I'm thinking maybe we want to think again.
The 2004-'05 Bulls won games with Kirk Hinrich's steady hand and feel for distribution, some emerging offensive talent (see Ben Gordon and Luol Deng), and some fierce, energetic, defense (see their second-best-in-basketball defensive efficiency score of 97.4 points per 100 possessions).
The hardest thing to maintain after a young club has some unexpected success is intensity from year to year. A team comes out flat in November and ends up scrambling (see last year's pre-Karl Nuggets), or worse (see last year's Timberwolves, minus Eveready Garnett), the rest of the way. But the 2005-'06 Bulls seem just as wired as they were most of last year, and seem much more inclined to sustain than regress.
They're just 2-2 after Wednesday night's 85-84 win over Golden State, but both those losses were close and to good teams, one in overtime to San Antonio and another on a buzzer-beater at New Jersey. They're getting even more cool judgment and production out of Hinrich than they did last year. Gordon's still hitting big shots. Deng looks healthy and slippery around the bucket and the boards.
Tyson Chandler continues his always-jumping-always-around-the-ball maturation into what the Great Hubie would rightfully call "one of the premier rebounders in this league." And they've replaced Eddy Curry with Mike Sweetney, whose soft hands and formidable caboose are a strangely unstoppable combination for about 20 minutes a night. And they move the ball as a team, quickly and crisply.
But none of this is what you notice first. What you notice first is the shuffling feet. All over the floor. On Monday night as the clock wound down in a tie game against San Antonio, Manu Ginobili went around the outside and looked to snake his way in for an up-and-under.
It looked like ballgame as it unfolded, but all of a sudden, there was Chandler, busting his behind to the baseline, closing what little window there had been. It wasn't enough to win the game in the end, but it was enough to impress. And the story was the same on Wednesday against the Warriors.
The Bulls were down 10 at the half, but they turned the second half into a horror chamber for Golden State shooters, contesting every attempt, picking up at halfcourt or deeper on every possession, doubling down, extending all amoeba-like on the perimeter, and leaving them to ponder a 24 percent (12-for-49) second 24.
It wasn't a pretty game, no game with that much clanging could be, but it wasn't ugly, either. The Bulls don't play slow-down, Anthony-Mason-laying-wood-to-your-back D; they don't muscle and grab. They move. They hustle. They work it. There's something entertaining about it, something that makes you want to see more.
And as Chandler stepped in to help on Jason Richardson as the clock wound down Wednesday night, helping preserve a one-point win, that was the lasting impression: We're going to see more of this club.
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