The 6-10 Chicago Bulls have lost four straight games and six of their last seven.
And Friday night's 108-107 home defeat to the Orlando Magic may have been a new low, from the 19-point third quarter deficit, to Zach LaVine (1-for-14 shooting) being benched down the stretch, to the missed Nikola Vučević free throws that led to Jalen Suggs' gut-wrenching game-winner.
But even worse than that? Life is not getting any easier for a Bulls team that has already bemoaned a grueling schedule that featured four back-to-back sets in their first 12 games.
Beginning with Monday's home date with the reigning Eastern Conference champion — and current owners of the NBA's top record — Boston Celtics, the Bulls play eight teams with above-.500 records in their next 10 games. Seven of those 10 games are on the road. And one of the below-.500 teams due up in that stretch is the reigning champion Golden State Warriors.
| Date | Team | Record | Conference Seed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov. 21 | vs. Celtics | 13-3 | East, 1 |
| Nov. 23 | @ Bucks | 11-4 | East, 2 |
| Nov. 25 | @ Thunder | 7-9 | West, 12 |
| Nov. 28 | @ Jazz | 11-6 | West, 2 |
| Nov. 30 | @ Suns | 11-4 | West, 4 |
| Dec. 2 | @ Warriors | 7-9 | West, 11 |
| Dec. 4 | @ Kings | 8-6 | West, 7 |
| Dec. 7 | vs. Wizards | 9-7 | East, 7 |
| Dec. 10 | vs. Mavericks | 9-6 | West, 5 |
| Dec. 11 | @ Hawks | 9-6 | East, 3 |
*The Bulls are 3-8 against above.-500 teams and 2-5 on the road this season.
While no solitary game in November or December makes or breaks a season, this stretch has the potential to define the season. At 6-10, the Bulls are down, but not out in the scope of an Eastern Conference where seed Nos. 3 (Atlanta Hawks, 9-6) through 10 (Brooklyn Nets, 7-9) are separated by just 2.5 games.
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But after these 10 games, the Bulls will have played 26, more than a quarter of the way to the regular season finish line. At that juncture in 2021-22, the Bulls were 17-9 and second in the East only to the Nets.
For a snapshot of how this season is going, look no further than the Magic game.
After Billy Donovan spent more than 10 minutes of his pregame media session calling on his top three players — DeMar DeRozan, LaVine, Vučević — to set a better tone to start games, a 4-11 Magic team playing without its leading scorer jumped ahead 37-24 in the final seconds of the first quarter. And the dominant postgame takeaway was the recently maxed-out LaVine's palpable frustration with Donovan's decision to sit him for the final four minutes of the fourth.
With that contest in the rearview, the Bulls now own a 104.2 offensive rating, 116.6 defensive rating and -12.4 net rating with their "Big Three" on the court together this season. Slow starts have been a theme, as have sloppy finishes. The Bulls are also 0-7 in "clutch" games, the only team in the NBA yet to pick one up.
"He said the right thing. It's definitely on us (him, LaVine and Vučević)," DeRozan said of Donovan's pregame message. "We gotta take on that challenge. We gotta be better — defensively offensively. We gotta lead better. We're the older guys in that starting group. We gotta set the tone."
That resolve will soon face a series of daunting tests.