Bulls guard Coby White drives to the basket between Celtics defenders Derrick White (left) and Jrue Holiday during the second half Thursday at the United Center.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
So we’ve finally arrived. The final third. The last dance. The real ‘‘no bull’’ tour. In ninth place. Only 10 slots matter. Four games below .500, 4½ games out of being out of the play-in. We are here, though. Here for the so-called ‘‘playoff push.’’ All rise for our new Bulls.
Feels the same though, right? No different than before the All-Star break, when they were supposed to use that escape to come back as a different team with a Boa Constrictor Mentality putting a chokehold on the rest of the regular season. Where’s the difference?
As you read this, the Bulls have 26 regular-season games left. Twenty-six games out of an 82-game season out of a cursed, failed, forward-movement-less three-year experiment that has become their current existence. Which brings us back to this: Twenty-six games to prove exactly what? Not to put too much on Game 1 of this new-look ‘‘playoff push’’ out of the gate (a loss Thursday to the Celtics), but after seeing the exact same output as forever, you’ve gotta ask: What for the Bulls exactly is their version of a ‘‘playoff push’’?
Does a ‘‘playoff push’’ look like this? Finding yourself in a 16-point hole at home, only to climb out of that hole and have a lead by halftime? Then to open the second half with three ‘‘point’’ guards (Alex Caruso, Ayo Dosunmu and Coby White), DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic on the floor against the best team in the NBA and, in minutes, be down by double digits before the fourth quarter starts? Or allowing a team to block 11 of your shots in that same must-win game, compared to you only blocking two of theirs?
Does a ‘‘playoff push’’ sound like this? Assistant coach Josh Longstaff telling a Bulls sideline reporter at halftime of the game: ‘‘We will live and die with their three-point shot-making’’? Speaking about a team that, at that time of the game, was shooting 45% from three-point range (which increased to 55% in the first 15 minutes after halftime), takes more threes than any team in the NBA and also — oh, yeah — has the best record in basketball? A team that has proved all season that hitting threes is what it does?
Is a ‘‘playoff push’’ even realistic when facing this? In the eight games after this loss to the Celtics (No. 1, East), the Bulls face only two teams with sub-.500 records who aren’t in their own playoff pushes. Included in that span are the Bucks (No. 3 in the East entering play Friday), the Cavs (No. 2 in the East), the Pels (No. 5 in the West), the Kings (No. 8 in the West), the Clippers (No. 3 in the West) and the Warriors (No. 10 in the West and the hottest team in the conference entering the All-Star break), with those last three on the road.
Is this how a ‘‘playoff push’’ is supposed to feel?
There’s supposed to be this miraculous change of performance, belief and culture. This is where the Bulls are supposed to show us what they’re really about and whom they really are, as opposed to whom we’ve grown to know them to be, based on how they’ve presented themselves to us. That they can actually turn this newfound free-from-LaVine freedom into something of true substance, rather than ranking second-to-last in the NBA in assists per game (24.3); that they can increase their offensive pace and output so that they catch up to the league ‘‘norm’’ (99.1) and not be the slowest offensive team in the NBA, averaging 96.3 possessions per 48 minutes; and that, as a team, they can elevate their true shooting percentage of 56.8% so it is no longer just close to the league bottom but, worse, is lower than that of the Pistons.
Digress. Chill. I’ll stop there. Going any further doesn’t prove or help anything. Let be what is but always be real about what is. The goal this season for the Bulls has always come down to this: Can they win that final play-in game? The game they didn’t win last season. Anything less, a failure; anything more, worth it all.
But first they have to get there. For the Bulls, the ‘‘playoff push’’ game is not a pretty one when it has to be played, when every game has to be won. Let the countdown begin: 26, 25, 24 . . .
Hopefully, there’ll be a 27, then a 28. When the push will come to shove.