Baffoe: Tom Thibodeau Needs To Bring Back The Dog In The Bulls
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Remember how refreshing the Chicago Bulls' new Actually Scoring Points offense seemed when it was rolled out this season? It was such a nice change from last season's excessive Bleed and Sweat on the Scoreboard in Hopes the Number Rises version.
These new Bulls have become a total opposite with the ball in their hands than the days of grinding down opponents (and at times themselves) instead of dominating them. It's spoiled them and is now ironically hurting them.
The Bulls are scoring 102.1 points per game, 12th in the NBA and a far cry from the 93.7 they were meat grinding last year to put them at dead last in the league. They're 10th in offensive efficiency compared to 28th a year prior, according to basketball-reference.com.
Coupled with a typical Tom Thibodeau junkyard dog defense, that all should have them well on their way to being the alpha dog of the Eastern Conference. But the defense has been estranged of late. Like giving-up-121-points-to-Orlando-and-not-returning-your-text-messages estranged. That bed wetting Monday night against the Magic led Thibodeau to finally snap, channel his inner Denis Savard, and demand that his team "commit to the Indian."
It would be pretty cool if Thibodeau spoke about this circle while making little persons out of beer cans, but existentialism just isn't his thing. Even so, he needs to start thinking outside the box for a solution to the Bulls' defensive woes.
Who exactly he's referring to regarding "the circle" isn't clear. Derrick Rose's defense has been matadorian much of the season, and even stalwarts Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson were tied for worst defensive rating on the court Monday. And despite all his offensive heroics this season, Pau Gasol was unceremoniously murdered by a Montenegrin truck Monday night.
"There's an excuse every night," Thibodeau said of the "if it's not one guy failing, it's another" theme. "You can't do that."
Defensive regression wasn't even in the conversation going into this season. The Bulls managed to get better on paper, it seemed. But their league-best defense of last season got rid of screaming liability Carlos Boozer and somehow has managed to sink to 14th in points given up. They've allowed 100-plus points in 15 of their 39 games this season.
It's as though the Bulls got drunk on points scored and forgot what has made them one of the top teams in the league for the last few years. True, reigning Defensive Player of the Year Joakim Noah is obviously playing hurt, but at some point blame has to rest on Thibodeau. Usually it's the players who need to answer for poor play, but Thibodeau's team hasn't been motivated to work to stop opponents and instead seems set on trying to beat them in a race to triple digits.
After Monday's loss — arguably the team's worst of the season — Gasol cited some pretty telling shortcomings.
"There was no energy, no aggressiveness, no engagement from our team," he said. "No communication. So we have to improve."
When a Hall of Famer is pointing that stuff out, the coach needs to figure out a remedy right quick.
Ditto when your fearless bench muscle, Gibson, admits the team has a tendency to pull back.
"At times I think we forget," Gibson said regarding forgetting this team's defensive identity due to offensive effectiveness. "When you're scoring the ball so easily, you kind of just get relaxed. I guess I look at how we get lax sometimes. A lot of teams are looking to push the ball against us. Our whole thing — I think we just get humbled at times. We just get too high on ourselves instead of staying humble and low key and still having that dog mentality."
Never has Chicago had to even consider a Thibodeau team being anything less than a pitbull's jaws against teams that have the ball, but something has been allowed to slip under his normally meticulous watch. It's not as though he has drastically eased up on his notorious playing time choke collar. The major players' minutes are still up there. Butler and Gasol are playing big minutes, and Noah is over 30 minutes a game. A returning Rose is at 28.9 minutes per game, and Gibson contributes 27.3 minutes off the bench. And when Mike Dunleavy returns from injury…
And then there's the bipolar nature of this team. One week before the embarrassment against the Magic, the Bulls beat the Houston Rockets. Earlier, they handily beat the Los Angeles Clippers on the road and followed up with a weak loss to the Sacramento Kings. The Portland Trail Blazers, Washington Wizards, Memphis Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors have all fallen to the Bulls, and yet the Bulls have lost icky games to weaklings such as the Utah Jazz, Indiana Pacers, Boston Celtics and Magic at home.
A team that should be (and still may be) a legit contender to go to the NBA Finals shouldn't be, at times, such a tough watch.
"We just have to have the right mindset," Gibson said. "We got to change our whole mind frame around and get hungry. We just got to have that dog mentality again."
Please do so. Keep scoring points -- that's cool -- but get back to biting down on the other team.
Because otherwise, woof.
Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimBaffoe.
