Two of their five wins have come on national television against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder, arguably two of the NBA’s top five teams.
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Playing the winless 76ers is about as automatic a win as a team gets these days – this decade, really – in the National Basketball Association. The main concern is how the Bulls have played so far.
Right now, the Chicago Bulls have no identity and it’s hurting them. Defensively, the Bulls yield 101.4 points against the opposing teams. That has not been the case this year. “I think credit goes to Coach”, Okafor said of Brett Brown after becoming the first member of the 2015 National Basketball Association rookie class to pull down 15 rebounds. They also are 10th in opponents points per game, allowing 99.8 points allowed per game. Noah/Gasol didn’t look too well a year ago, but maybe things will look better this season?
Philadelphia is 0-5 SU in its last 5 games. Wood scored six points and Holmes had five in the first 6:48 of the period.
“Nobody on this team wants to be an up-and-down team or an average team or a team that strives to make it to the playoffs and then we’re out”, Gasol said.
The Sixers definitely had the same old they usually have against the Bulls (5-3), winners of seven straight and 12 of 13 meetings in the series. They can be better than they’ve been, and they know it.
The total has gone OVER in 9 of Philadelphia’s last 11 games.
Meanwhile, the Sixers managed to shoot just 35 percent from the field, make 13 of 23 foul shots, and commit 17 turnovers. Three-point shooting comes and goes no matter how good you are, and if that’s what the Bulls rely on then, they’re in trouble. Fred Hoiberg can’t expect one lineup change to fix it, especially after how Noah played past year as a starter.
But Joakim Noah’s left knee didn’t cooperate, and Nikola Mirotic took advantage of his reprieve. Mirotic is still young and while he has been inconsistent he has once again shown his potential. It gets hard at times. And he had three things on the board on what he wanted me to focus on, and one of them was defensive rebounding. Their problem is they’re inconsistent and play to their competition. They’ve been outscored in the 1st halves of games 297 to 265.
The Bulls are still trying to find stability at small forward where Snell and Doug McDermott have had mixed success.
Mirotic, starting for Noah, hit 3 three-pointers in the third quarter.
But when it comes down to it, this offense is average, this defense is average and right now this team is average.
Chicago is a solid team, and for now, they’re capable enough of surviving on talent alone. Okafor struggled at times to defend the pick and roll, and gave up good position to Gasol early on, but the Bulls shot only 42.1% on shots at the rim, and Okafor blocked 2 shots, the 3rd time in the last four games he’s swatted at least 2 shots.
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It brings to mind a stretch last January, when the Bulls beat the Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena (one of only two teams to do so all season) and followed it up with three consecutive losses, two of which came at the hands of non-playoff teams.
