Despite 7-9 record, Bulls confident they'll continue to improve
At the Berto Center after returning from a six-game road trip, the Bulls had several reasons to feel encouraged with their 7-9 record.
A rookie, Derrick Rose, is running the offense, and many of the failures on the court should improve with better familiarity among the players.
Most of all, though, the schedule has been brutal.
The Bulls have already faced five of the NBA's six division leaders on the road, along with six of the current top eight teams in the Western Conference. The combined record of the nine opponents that have beaten the Bulls is 99-36.
"There's frustration here because I feel we could be little bit better," coach Vinny Del Negro said. "But there's a lot of optimism there because I know we can improve."
Another reason to feel good about the state of the Bulls is the recent history of dreadful failure on the circus road trip. Even when they ended up winning 49 games in 2006-07, they returned from the trip with a 4-9 record. Last season, the Bulls were 2-10 after their circus trek.
There is still one stop remaining on this year's journey. The Bulls visit Philadelphia and former No. 1 draft pick Elton Brand on Sunday.
"Some people dread having that West Coast trip so early and getting off to a bad start," forward Drew Gooden said. "We can't say we're very happy with where we're at right now. But we'll take it. It's something we can work on.
"We're at the point right now where we need to close out games. We're hanging in with teams that won championships, teams that went deep in the playoffs. We're making it a game, but we're not finishing it off in the fourth quarter."
The way the Bulls lost in San Antonio on Wednesday is not necessarily encouraging. They led by 9 points with 5:37 remaining in the third quarter, then were quickly buried by a 31-6 run.
There was a similar occurrence in Denver on Sunday when they led by 3 with five minutes left, then allowed the Nuggets to close the game on an 18-2 surge.
"We've got to do two things: We've got to execute on the defensive end a little bit better," Del Negro said. "I thought we're giving up too many easy baskets. Then offensively, we come down in both games and don't really get into our sets clean. One, maybe two passes and a shot, instead of really working the clock and probing a little bit.
"We've gotten better at it on this trip, but we've got a lot of room to improve there."
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