The Chicago Bulls are finally a playoff team again this season. They have some solid talent on the roster, and their wing duo of DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine is an electric partnership.
At the beginning of the season, there were many people that felt confident in the Chicago Bulls’ championship chances. DeMar DeRozan even claimed that the team could “play with anybody” and that the goal was “to compete for a championship”.
“As a competitor, you always wanna beat anybody in anything that they say you can’t do,” DeRozan said. “I definitely seen it, my teammates seen it — and we took it personally. We let our games speak for ourselves. I was spoking, we gotta go out on the court and go out compete.”
“We respect all of top teams in the conference — everything — but we gotta go out there and compete every single night. We ain’t gonna cut ourselves short, we feel like we can play with anybody and the goal is to compete for a championship.”
Despite DeMar DeRozan’s confidence in his team, there were definitely some red flags that have surfaced recently that cast doubt on how successful the Chicago Bulls would be as a playoff team. The Chicago Bulls were previously 0-15 against the top-3 teams in both conferences.
With their recent loss against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Chicago Bulls are now 0-16 against the top-3 teams in both conferences. This is also their 9th loss in 12 games. DeMar DeRozan got real after the game, claiming that the Bulls need to “turn it around and show that desperation”. An article on ESPN featured the news.
Nikola Vucevic had 22 points for the Bulls, who opened a five-game trip one night after a 113-99 victory over the Toronto Raptors. DeMar DeRozan and LaVine added 21 points each as the Bulls lost for the ninth time in 12 games.
“At some point, we’ve got to get tired of getting our butt kicked like this and flip that switch of understanding, all right, enough is enough,” DeRozan said. “Now it’s time to turn it around and show that desperation.”
Hopefully, the Chicago Bulls rise up to the occasion and finish off the season strong. While they are missing Lonzo Ball due to injury, it is time for the other players on the roster to step it up.
It remains to be seen how far the Chicago Bulls will end up getting in the playoffs. They have talent, but they definitely need to figure out how to get out of their current slump and beat good teams. Perhaps we’ll see them be able to do so in the coming weeks.
