Bulls still trying to figure things out
Former NBA head coach Jeff Van Gundy likes to say, “You are who your record says you are.”
What he means by that is the Bulls, for example, are 27-23 after losing Saturday in Minnesota. They're a slightly above-average squad that isn't a lock to make the playoffs in the East.
Sure, they could easily be 5-1 — not 2-4 — on the ice show road trip. If only Taj Gibson hung onto that missed free throw in Utah. Or the Bulls hadn't blown the 18-point lead in Denver. Or they found a way to prevent Minnesota from isolating 6-8 Andrew Wiggins against small guards late in Saturday's game.
But that's Van Gundy's point. Good teams don't do those sorts of things. That's why the Bulls are sinking in the standings.
Then again, someone could use Van Gundy's theory to point out the Bulls have an 8-3 record against the teams with the six best records in the NBA — Golden State, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Toronto and the L.A. Clippers.
Well, true, the Bulls are a complicated bunch.
“We've battled adversity since Day 1,” Hoiberg told reporters after the loss in Minnesota. “Derrick (Rose) breaks a bone in his eye, Mike (Dunleavy) has offseason surgery, had guys in and out of the lineup; that's adversity.”
There's one last stop on the seven-game road trip. Maybe watching the Super Bowl from one of the participating team's home city will bring the Bulls good luck against the Charlotte Hornets on Monday. The Hornets are currently in ninth place in the East, 2½ games behind the sixth-place Bulls.
Two games are left before the all-star break. After playing Charlotte, the Bulls will host Atlanta on Wednesday. Jimmy Butler (left knee strain) and Nikola Mirotic (recovering from appendectomy and hematoma removal) will almost certainly miss these two games and perhaps more.
The health news isn't all bad. Mike Dunleavy made his season debut Saturday after recovering from back surgery. Pau Gasol returned after taking a game off with a left hand injury.
Dunleavy had some ideas about how the Bulls can turn it around. They've gone 5-11 since hitting 10 games above .500 on Jan. 7.
“We talked about it a little bit, we've got to have a bigger ego, a bigger team ego,” Dunleavy said, according to espn.com. “To the point where it's like, ‘Look, man, we go into games like, we're winning this game.' We're doing the stretch like, ‘We're going to handle business.'
“There's like this doubt that seems to be creeping in and we're too good for that. We got good players, we're well-coached, and we got to execute a little better. But more importantly we got to have that feeling like, ‘Man, we're going to get this done.'”
Maybe the Bulls worked on that while watching the Super Bowl.
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Bulls scouting report
Bulls vs. Charlotte Hornets at Time Warner Cable Arena, 6 p.m.
TV: Comcast SportsNet
Radio: ESPN 1000-AM
Outlook: The Bulls get one last chance to beat a sub-. 500 opponent on the ice show road trip. But Charlotte was the site of one of their worst losses of the season, 130-105 on Nov. 3. Overall, the Bulls are 1-2 against the Hornets (25-26). SF Nicholas Batum has averaged 23.3 points against the Bulls. Backup SG Jeremy Lamb has also been a tough matchup, averaging 15.0 points against the Bulls, while top scorer Kemba Walker is at 14.3 points in the series. Jimmy Butler leads the Bulls with 26 points per game against Charlotte, but he's out with a left knee strain. The Hornets have gone 6-3 over their last nine games.
Next: Atlanta Hawks at the United Center on Wednesday, 7 p.m.
— Mike McGraw