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The Chicago Bulls are beating the teams they’re supposed to. At least thus far they are. Through seven games the Bulls have played two inferior opponents in the Brooklyn Nets and Orlando Magic (the jury is still out on the Indiana Pacers), and have thoroughly handled them.
The fact the Bulls have proven capable of blowing out bum teams is actually a pretty big deal. It does matter.
— Chris Terzic (@cterzz) November 8, 2016
Why is this an important trend to note? Throughout last season the Bulls suffered multiple losses to teams of lesser talent. Constantly they came without a sense of urgency, or a “killer instinct” to put away teams when they secured substantial leads. At the end of the season this inevitably came back to bite them in the ass.
Chicago finished the 2015-2016 season ninth in the Eastern Conference, two games outside of the eighth place Detroit Pistons. And when you look back at their schedule, and the teams that they lost to, they very easily should have made the postseason. 14 of their 40 losses came against teams who missed the playoffs. But that just goes to show you how dysfunctional that group was as a whole.
So we can take some solace early on this season in seeing this version of the Bulls putting away the teams they should.
For this team specifically, showing that they’re capable of doing so could very well have a significant impact in the grand scheme of things. If this trend is to continue, beating teams of less caliber, it’ll surely benefit them at the end of the season “if” they’re in a position (that most think they’ll be in) of fighting for one of the final playoffs spots.
But if they were to drop too many of these type of games, they’ll eventually add up and they could be on the outside looking in at the postseason once again. The good news is it appears as though they’re on the right path early on.
Granted, it’s still very early on in the season to really determine what this team is. We’ve seen two very different teams in their first three games versus their second three. Within the next couple of weeks will get a better idea of who they are long term, and if they can indeed, claim victory over teams they should.