Bulls still dangerous without Derrick Rose, but championship hopes dashed
Derrick Rose tore his ACL late in the Bulls' Game 1 victory over the 76ers. (Brian Kersey/Landov)
The NBA playoffs got off to about as bad a start as possible on Saturday, as Bulls point guard Derrick Rose suffered a season-ending torn ACL in his left knee during Chicago’s 103-91 victory against the 76ers. Rose, who will also miss the London Olympics this summer, sustained the injury with about 1:20 remaining and the Bulls leading by 12 points. The Bulls’ Tom Thibodeau has long been known for overplaying his core players, and though he’s far from the only coach who would have had a star on the court with a double-digit lead and under two minutes left, he will face justifiable scrutiny for what happened in Game 1 in Chicago.
Playing without Rose won’t be anything new for the Bulls, who went 18-9 when he was out this season. They also outscored opponents by 8.2 points per 100 possessions when Rose was on the bench, according to NBA.com. Only one team put up a better figure: the Bulls, who outscored opponents by 9.3 points per 100 possessions for the full season and a whopping 10.6 when Rose was on the court. In addition, point guard John Lucas III emerged as a reliable backup to the backup (C.J. Watson), and the Bulls’ defense is so good that it at least keeps them in almost every game.
That’s the main takeaway here: This is still a very, very good team, if a dispirited one, and Chicago could well be playing in the Eastern Conference finals a month or so from now. The Bulls should remain heavy favorites against the scoring-challenged Sixers, and they would have a realistic chance against the Boston-Atlanta winner in the next round. Calling that series a “toss-up” might actually be a bit insulting to the Bulls, though the Hawks might have both Al Horford and Zaza Pachulia back by then, and the Celtics have been one of the league’s top teams since the All-Star break. Chicago was 2-1 against Boston without Rose, and the Celtics’ one win was a down-to-the-wire thriller.
But this is obviously not the same Chicago team, and in the hothouse of the playoffs, where teams are rested and defenses are attuned to every possession, the Bulls are no longer quite equipped to win four straight series. The Bulls’ ability to generate offense against elite defenses was always going to decide their postseason fate, and without Rose, they are vulnerable to droughts. Chicago scored 107.6 points per 100 possessions with Rose this season and 102.3 points without him. That is roughly the difference between the league’s second-ranked offense and an average one. Chicago shot 46.8 percent with Rose on the floor and 43.9 percent when he sat. They shot more accurately from three-point range, earned more foul shots and generated more attempts from the restricted area with him in the lineup.
That the Bulls scored at a decent rate without Rose is a tribute to the skill of their big men, Luol Deng’s work as a secondary creator, the presence of two shooters whom defenses must chase (Kyle Korver and Richard Hamilton) and the precision with which everyone runs Thibodeau’s effective (if predictable) sets. Chicago knows how to create space without Rose through passing and player movement.
Teams have reached the NBA Finals before with the combination of an all-world defense and an average offense; the 2009-10 Celtics and the mid-2000s Pistons are the most recent examples. But going that route removes the margin for error, especially against competition as good as the Bulls will have to face along the way. You need some margin for error if you’re going to run a Celtics-Heat-Spurs sort of gauntlet.
This is a shame, for too many reasons to list here. With Rose, the Bulls might be the best team in the league. And if that’s the case, the championship favorite has been crippled on Day 1 of the playoffs. Chicago appeared ready to round into playoff shape offensively, too. The team leaned heavily on Hamilton in Game 1, and the veteran guard responded by making 6-of-7 shots and 6-of-6 free throws for 19 points. Thibodeau played Hamilton and Korver together more than usual, and he used the Korver-Hamilton-Deng trio for long chunks in small lineups in which Deng played power forward. Those three had played only eight minutes together all season before Saturday. Philadelphia’s small lineups enabled some of this tweaking, but the point is that with Rose and Hamilton ready to go after injury-plagued seasons, the Bulls were primed to become even more dangerous on offense.
If the playoffs unfold as most expect, Miami’s path to the Finals just became a lot easier. Boston could also end up the big winner here. At their best, the Celtics play defense just as ferociously as the Bulls do, and their new starting lineup, with Avery Bradley at shooting guard, has been destroying the league. The Celtics fear neither the Hawks nor the Heat, and they have proved before that they are capable of raising their game in the playoffs. A healthy Hawks team doesn’t threaten the Heat, but it does threaten the Bulls.
It’s far too early to address this in detail now, but suffice it to say this: An injury to any player, even one of the league’s half-dozen best, does not tarnish any other team’s title run. The league’s history is filled with championship-shifting injuries to superstars and role players alike, going back to Bill Russell’s getting hurt in the 1958 playoffs and touching just about every franchise that has ever advanced deep into the postseason. Losing the reigning MVP in the first game of the playoffs obviously falls on the more catastrophic end of the injury scale, but it is still part of the same general equation that determines each year’s champion.
But that’s a discussion for another day. For now, let’s watch these Bulls — these selfless, hungry, determined Bulls — rally around their fallen leader and push as far as they can. And let’s wish last season’s MVP a full recovery.
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