Bulls close to perfect even without practice
The Bulls are within striking distance of first place in the Eastern Conference. They've posted the league's most impressive defensive statistics, own a 22-6 record since Dec. 4, and yet they rarely practice.
Following Monday's 92-83 victory over Milwaukee, coach Tom Thibodeau gave his players another day off. So far the Bulls have held three actual practices in January and all of them lasted less than an hour.
When Bucks coach Scott Skiles coached in Chicago, it wasn't unusual to see two-hour workouts on the day after the game. Vinny Del Negro rarely granted more than one day off per week.
Thibodeau tends to favor days off and realized rest worked best when he coached in Boston the last three years.
Forward Luol Deng raised a valid point after the Milwaukee game — the Bulls earned these days off by posting a 31-14 record.
“When we were with Skiles and Vinny, if we had 30 wins by now, I think we' be getting days off, too,” Deng said with a laugh. “It just comes with playing well.
“We're playing well, so we're getting days off and we're doing a good job of coming back and winning. If we were losing, I'd think those wouldn't be days off.”
During training camp and early in the season, Thibodeau's practices were long, often 2½-3 hours. That's obviously when he installed his plan for defensive success.
Thibodeau said Monday there are a lot of things that need to be cleaned up, but it hardly shows. To this point, the game-day shootarounds have been sufficient.
“It's been tough, but that's all part of it,” Thibodeau said. “Our guys have done a good job with it through film sessions, walk-throughs … to have great concentration and make those corrections. We're trying to build the right habits.”
The Bulls haven't had consecutive days off since Jan. 2-3, so it may feel strange to get three days of down time before hosting Orlando on Friday. After the Milwaukee game, guard Derrick Rose talked about using the time off wisely.
“My back is killing me right now,” he said.
It will be interesting to see how the Bulls respond to some rare preparation time. Their worst loss of the season came against the Magic on Dec. 1.
Carlos Boozer made his Bulls debut at the United Center that night, but Orlando rolled to a 107-78 victory. In contrast, the Bulls' second-worst loss of the season was by 12 points.
Not long after that game, the Magic hit a losing streak and made a couple of major trades, bringing in Gilbert Arenas, Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu. This will be the Bulls' first look at the new lineup, so practice time should be helpful.
“I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. We'll see,” Deng joked. “We'll try to use those days to rest up. There are going to be a lot of hard closeouts and playing defense in practice, so I don't know if it's a good thing, to be honest.”