3 early Chicago Bulls takeaways from 2019-20 NBA season

(Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
(Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 4
Next
Chicago Bulls
(Photo by Kent Smith/NBAE via Getty Images) /

2. Defensive issues still a problem

One of the areas of emphasis for the Chicago Bulls coming into this season was putting forth a better effort on the defensive end of the floor. How has the team fared in this area?

Um, not so great.

Circling back to the opening night loss to the Hornets, the Bulls surrendered 126 points to a team that lost its top two scorers during the offseason. Not only that, but Charlotte shot 51.1 percent from the field overall and an efficient 52.3 percent from beyond the arc.

Against the defending champion Raptors? Well, to be fair, the Bulls hung in there during the first 24 minutes of action, as they trailed 48-40 going into the break. However, Chicago’s defense was all but nonexistent in the second half, with the Raptors scoring 60 points en route to an easy victory.

How about the team’s most recent loss to the previous winless New York Knicks? Well, after surrendering an 18-point lead, the Bulls managed to build an eight-point cushion (98-90) with a little over three and half minutes left in regulation.

From that point on, not only did the Bulls fail to register a single point the rest of the way, they allowed the Knicks — a team that is ranked in the bottom third of the league in scoring — reel off 15 consecutive points to post a come-from-behind win.

If the Bulls have any hopes of competing for one of the lower seeds in the East, they will need minimize the kinds of defensive lapses that were on display against the Knicks.