The end of the NBA regular season is less than a month away and the final stretch is a big one for the Chicago Bulls as they are pushing for a playoff spot. The Bulls did a good job earlier in the season of climbing up the standings into postseason position, but they have been stuck in ninth place in the East for awhile now. Chicago has consistently been 2-4 games below .500, and if they want to reach that .500 mark and climb up the standings, they need to play well down the stretch.
Chicago has just 14 games left this season and they are currently 33-35. If the Bulls want to avoid the play-in, they would have to move into the top-six in the East, and they are currently five games back of that mark. Chicago certainly has a lot of winnable games down the stretch (they play the Washington Wizards twice and the Detroit Pistons once), but they know that they need to bring their A-game every night.
“With our team, I just don’t look at it that way because I think every game is hard for us,” Billy Donovan told the media on Saturday night. “I don’t think any of us, certainly including the players, have made excuses. I do believe there is enough in the locker room, but with what we’ve got out [there] we have to play well, regardless of who it is. … Sometimes the records can be with some teams a little bit misleading because when you look at the net rating or the margin of loss by them it’s only a possession or two with some of these teams. I think for us we don’t have a wide margin, and I’ve talked about this. We need to play well, and obviously we’re giving some other guys opportunities to play that maybe haven’t had that experience in the past with what we’ve had to deal with. I think for us, I don’t necessarily look at who we’re playing or what their record is as much as we have to look at the fact that we’ve got to play well.”
The Bulls are hosting the Portland Trailblazers on Monday night, and they are currently 19-48. That is a game that Chicago needs to win.
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