Chicago Bulls: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 NBA season

2. Defense needs some work

When former head coach Tom Thibodeau was roaming the sidelines, the Bulls were one of the best defensive teams in the league. In fact, from 2010-11 through 2014-15, Chicago finished no lower than third in points allowed.

That trend was on display once again last season as some of the holdovers from that past era mimicked the defensive principles Thibodeau implemented during his five-year tenure in the Windy City. As a result, the Bulls finished sixth in both scoring defense (102.4 points per game) and efficiency (107.0 points per 100 possessions), per Basketball-Reference.com.

As one would expect, this strategy didn’t sit too well with Jim Boylen – who was brought into the fold to help the Bulls retain some of the defensive intensity that made them one of the more difficult teams to play against in years past.

Unfortunately, the results of doing away with those concepts were not good by any stretch of the imagination. The Bulls allowed 110 points per contest, which ranked 27th in the league.

Secondly, they finished with a defensive rating of 110.8, placing them at just 24th in this category. If the Bulls have any hopes of improving upon what they did this season, they will definitely need to step up the intensity level at the defensive end of the court.