Bulls' playoff hopes amazingly possible
This has been going on for weeks, but the Bulls should be no less astonished every time they look at the Eastern Conference standings.
The Bulls keep losing, but don't lose ground in the playoff race.
As of Thursday morning, they were a game behind eighth-place New Jersey and 1½ games behind Atlanta for seventh. The seventh playoff seed would likely result in a first-round matchup with Detroit, the victim in all 3 of the Bulls' quality wins this season.
The bad news is the Bulls (18-27) headed West on Thursday and have five games left on their road trip, against Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Golden State and Utah. If they lose them all, coach Jim Boylan's team will return home 14 games below .500.
No one was in a good mood following Wednesday's 83-67 loss at Minnesota, and Boylan refused to take a dreary view of the difficult travel itinerary.
"I don't look at things like that," he said. "That's not the way I approach coaching. I look at it just the opposite. I look at every game as an opportunity for our team. When we go to Sacramento, we're going there to win and I'm not thinking or worried about going 12 or 13 games under .500. That's not on my mind right now."
The Bulls turned in a brutal offensive showing in the loss to the Timberwolves. But realistically, most NBA teams would struggle while missing three of their top five scorers.
The Bulls were without Ben Gordon (sprained right wrist), Luol Deng (left Achilles' tendinitis) and Joe Smith (illness) the past two games.
Smith should be ready to play Saturday against the Kings, and Gordon expressed optimism that he'll be completely healed as well.
In theory, the Bulls could be ready to play their best basketball of the season once everyone is healthy. The injuries have given young players such as Thabo Sefolosha and Joakim Noah a chance to build confidence.
The Bulls have gone 2-3 with Gordon and Deng sidelined. Under the circumstances, that's not a terrible outcome.
"You hope that the experience these guys are getting, the comfort level they're showing out there on the floor, will benefit us when we get some guys back," Boylan said.
"We'll be able to maybe play a little bit harder, with a little bit more intensity knowing that we have some guys on the bench who can come in and give us some solid minutes. We don't have to play our guys as many minutes as we have in the past, keep them fresh."
Kirk Hinrich could probably use a break. He's averaged 42 minutes in the last five games and hit just 5 of 17 shots in Wednesday's loss.
The Bulls did not practice Thursday and plan to work out today in Sacramento.