There aren’t many pundits giving the Chicago Bulls a chance to upset the defending champion Bucks in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
It’s a fair stance, given Milwaukee’s dominance in the regular season series and a litany of matchup advantages. And the Bulls wouldn’t have it any other way.
“As a team, they counted us out all year. We never really listened to it. It’s all about us,” Coby White said after a recent practice. “We don’t really care what other people say or other people think.”
Added Ayo Dosunmu: “Everyone in this facility believes we can win. That’s all that really matters.”
Here’s a look at some key storylines, matchups and trends to watch in the best-of-seven bout, which represents the Bulls’ first playoff action since 2017:
Overview (2021-22 Regular Season)
(3) Bucks: 51-31 | ORtg: 114.3 (3rd) | DRtg: 111.1 (14th) | Net: +3.2 (8th)
NBA
(6) Bulls: 46-36 | ORtg: 112.7 (13th) | DRtg: 113.2 (23rd) | Net: -0.5 (20th)
Regular Season Series: Bucks 4-0
Jan. 21: Bucks win 94-90 at Milwaukee
- The Grayson Allen game. But what Allen fracturing Alex Caruso’s right wrist overshadowed is that this was the Bulls’ most competitive effort against the Bucks this season, and it came at Fiserv Forum.
Yes, the Bucks shot an uncharacteristic 6-for-31 from 3-point range — and missed a bevy of open looks — but the Bulls also compiled a fine defensive effort despite playing without Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball, Javonte Green and Derrick Jones Jr. Filling a rotation spot in light of those inactives, Tyler Cook stole some productive possessions guarding Giannis Antetokounmpo. But don’t take too much away from that: Cook is ineligible for postseason play because he is on a two-way contract.
March 4: Bucks win 118-112 at Chicago
- The Bulls led 88-81 entering the final frame, thrust ahead by a fastbreaking third quarter that saw them wreak defensive havoc and ride the hot hands of DeMar DeRozan and LaVine. But it was Milwaukee’s star trio that won the day, with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday combining to outscore the Bulls’ entire team — 30-24 behind 16 points from Holiday — in the fourth.
The biggest takeaway from this game — besides fighting through a 14-point first-half deficit to remain competitive — was Donovan’s starting lineup. The Bulls coach deployed Tristan Thompson and Nikola Vučević in the first unit, and ran them together for 12 minutes in the contest to the tune of a -10 plus-minus.
Bulls lineups featuring Thompson and Vučević own a -32.1 net rating this season in a small sample size of 26 minutes. While Donovan has maintained he’s open-minded with his lineup combinations as the Bulls search for any way to contend with the Bucks’ size, he conceded after Friday’s practice the Bulls haven’t toyed with the Thompson-Vučević pairing in practice this week.
March 22: Bucks win 126-98 at Milwaukee
- The Bulls rode a scalding start by Vučević to a 20-20 draw after 8:27 minutes. But when the reserves entered, the avalanche began. The Bucks won the remainder of the first half 39-23 en route to a 28-point victory. They were plus-17 in bench points before garbage time took hold. And they played without Khris Middleton.
Afterwards, Caruso bemoaned the Bulls’ unfocused nature in road games — they finished the season 27-14 at the United Center and 19-22 away from it — and Donovan and DeRozan not-so-subtly chastised the officials for a lopsided whistle. The Bucks out-attempted the Bulls 11-2 at the free-throw line in the first half. For the first and only time this season, DeRozan didn’t draw a charity-stripe trip all game.
April 5: Bucks win 127-106 at Chicago
- On the night the Bulls clinched their playoff berth in five years with a Cavaliers loss, they dropped another non-competitive contest. Antetokounmpo didn’t take a field-goal attempt until early in the second quarter. Milwaukee led by six after one, 12 at the half and 14 after three, but played with a scrimmage level of intensity throughout.
The biggest takeaway was Brook Lopez, playing in his 11th game of the season, dominating the Vučević matchup. Lopez scored a game-high 28 points to go with seven rebounds and two steals, while Vučević endured an abysmal 3-for-19 shooting night.
3 storylines to watch
Guarding Giannis: Antetokounmpo has personally won 13 straight matchups with the Bulls dating back to December 2017. He averaged 26.8 points, 13.5 rebounds and 5 assists against them this season. There isn’t a simple way to slow his unique blend of speed, length, strength and tenacity, which he proved last postseason translates spectacularly to the grandest stage. But the Bulls will have to try.
Expect Donovan to hurl waves of bodies Antetokounmpo’s way, as individual defenders and in help situations. Patrick Williams figures to start across from the “Greek Freak” at power forward, a trial by fire for the second-year forward. Thompson and Vučević will have a role to play, as might Caruso. Even Jones Jr. and Green could be called upon.
“In any playoff series you’ve gotta give great players like that different looks,” Thompson said of Antetokounmpo. “You can’t be predictable. It’s chess not checkers in the playoffs. They score a lot of points in the paint, so we’ve gotta try to limit that and have each other’s back. It’s gonna take all five of us to guard on defense.”
Added Donovan: “There isn’t anything he hasn’t seen in his entire career. He is a unique and special player, in transition and in the half court. It’s very, very difficult for anybody to guard him one-on-one because of the length and the size and skill set. You’ve gotta have people that are going to be in a really good position to provide help, you’re going to have to have people back in transition to form a wall or a crowd for him as much as possible. Any time he’s on an island one-on-one, leaving him there is not a great thing. We’re gonna have to provide just a lot of help.”
The problem then? Antetokounmpo has blossomed as a passer, and the Bucks surround him with a wealth of shooting and playmaking. It’s a weighty assignment.
Searching for support: DeRozan and LaVine are known quantities at the offensive end of the floor. The Bucks will certainly target their defensive approach to making the lives of the Bulls’ All-Star duo as difficult as possible.
The onus, then, falls on the Bulls’ ancillary weapons to make a greater impact than in past matchups. That means White must connect on better than 19.2 percent of his 3-pointers, which he did in the season series. That means Williams must decisively drive closeouts when opportunities present on the weak side. That means Dosunmu must make responsible decisions as a playmaker and, along with Caruso, hold up defensively against Jrue Holiday and Middleton. And that means Vučević, although more than an “ancillary” player, must contend better with Lopez’s two-way force.
It’s all the more important because the Bucks’ All-Star-caliber complements to Antetokounmpo, Holiday and Middleton, played like it throughout the season, especially against the Bulls. And Milwaukee’s stacked stable of role players — from Lopez to Bobby Portis to Pat Connaughton to Wesley Matthews — is battle-tested and multi-faceted.
Experience gap: In LaVine, White, Dosunmu and Williams, the Bulls enter this series with four rotation mainstays that are making their playoff debuts. The latter three are in their third, second and rookie NBA seasons, respectively.
“I’m really just trying to tell them how intense it’s gonna be. Try to get them ready for it,” Caruso said. “Been talking about it throughout the year, sprinkling it to guys like Ayo and Coby and Pat, just so they have some idea. They won’t be able to know until they get into the fire.”
At the other end of the spectrum, Caruso is one of two title-winners on the roster, along with Thompson. Donovan and DeRozan have each been to conference finals. Vučević has 11 games of playoff experience, though only one — as a rookie playing mop-up minutes — came outside the first round.
There’s a balance to be struck. But any learning curve for the first-timers as they adjust to a highly-intense, detailed-oriented postseason environment would erase an already-miniscule margin for error. That’s especially true in contrast to a Bucks team that largely returned its championship nucleus from last season.
3 Key Stats
30: Percentage Bulls shot from 3-point range in four games vs. Bucks
The Bucks’ defense is designed to wall off the paint. And they’re effective at doing so, especially with Lopez back in the lineup after missing the majority of the regular season.
The ripple effect? Milwaukee allowed the most opponent 3-point attempts per game in three of the last four seasons, including this one.
This isn’t an area the Bulls are designed to exploit, particularly without Ball. The Bulls attempted by far the fewest 3-pointers in the NBA this season, and since the All-Star break have slumped to the tune of a 34.8 percent conversion rate from long-range (21st in the NBA). They shot 30 percent from beyond the arc in the Bucks season series, taking 32.5 attempts per game — 8.1 attempts less than Bucks opponents averaged on the season, but nearly four more than the Bulls did, overall. The opportunity will be there to swing games with hot shooting, but how comfortable will the Bulls be attacking it? Time will tell.
11.2: Margin between teams’ free-throw attempts in four games
Defending without fouling is one of Donovan’s preferred points of emphasis. However, the Bulls haven’t heeded to it against the Bucks.
The Bulls this season ranked in the middle of the pack in opponent free-throw attempts conceded overall, but Milwaukee averaged 26.5 in its four regular-season series wins, with 11.3 coming via Antetokounmpo. Blame officials’ whistles if you’d like, or the size disadvantage at which the Bulls play. Either way, defending with discipline is imperative if they want a chance.
At the other end, the Bulls averaged 15.3 charity-stripe trips against Milwaukee, well below their season average of 21.5. More than half (7.8) of those 15.3 came via DeRozan, who will be leaned upon in this respect.
27.8: Bulls’ midrange field-goal attempts per game in four games
The Bulls averaged 5.4 fewer restricted-area field-goal attempts against Milwaukee (20) than their season average (25.4), and 8.9 more midrange attempts. That dynamic is a testament to the paint-blocking defensive scheme the Bucks employ. But it doesn’t have to be all bad.
At the Bulls’ height, DeRozan spearheaded a potent overall attack with ludicrously efficient midrange shot-making and foul-drawing. The problem is the Bucks have waves of cagey, physical and, above all, disciplined perimeter defenders to throw at him — from Holiday to Matthews to Middleton — that will make life difficult. Especially if they are solid enough to not require double-teams.
But if DeRozan rediscovers his unguardable form from earlier in the season, it could be a swing factor; he shot 49.3 percent from midrange in Bulls wins this season and 43.9 percent in losses. The Bulls owned a 19-9 record in his 28 30-point games and a 33-15 record in his 48 contests with 25 points or more.
3 X Factors
Coby White: Ball and his 7.4 3-point attempts per game (42.3 percent accuracy) are gone, leaving LaVine and White as the Bulls’ only high-volume long-range marksman in the regular rotation. White, especially, will have spot-up opportunities playing off of the Bulls’ offensive hubs. But which version of the third-year guard will show up? The one that shot 40.1 percent from distance before the All-Star break, or the one that once clanked 22 of 24 3-point attempts over a four-game span amid a brutal stretch-run shooting slump? The good news is White and Donovan like the shots he’s gotten against the Bucks this season. The bad news is he shot 27.5 percent from the field and 5-for-26 from 3-point range against them, including an 0-for-9 effort that featured plenty of clean misses on Jan. 21. That must change, and White’s defense and decision-making must be solid enough to keep him on the floor.
Patrick Williams: This time last year, Williams and Donovan attended a playoff game in Milwaukee as spectators to give the then-rookie a glimpse into the intensity of postseason basketball. Now, the 20-year-old is bracing for the thick of it, and will be tasked with slowing the reigning Finals MVP. If Williams holds up in that matchup and maintains even a modicum of the offensive assertiveness he displayed in his career-high scoring night against the Timberwolves last week, it would be massive for the Bulls. But that’s a massive “if” in its own right.
Zach LaVine’s left knee: By all accounts, LaVine enters the series as healthy as he can be while continuing to manage the knee soreness that has nagged him since January. He rested the Bulls’ regular-season finale and has been balancing practice, film work and treatment during the team’s week of preparations. Without back-to-backs in the postseason — in fact, the Bulls have a two-day layoff between Games 1 and 2 — the hope is he’ll function as close to himself as possible when the games begin. But LaVine has conceded he likely won’t be 100 percent for the remainder of the season, and any impairment of his mobility could mute his impact.
Prediction: Bucks in 5
The Bulls are due for a scalding shooting night, and will get one in either Games 3 or 4 in Chicago. But this has all the makings of a gentleman’s sweep. The experience gap is too steep, the matchups too lopsided, and the Bulls’ track record against elite teams too poor.