Chicago Bulls’ Return To Playoffs Features Date With Defending NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks

The final day of the 2021-22 NBA regular season brought intrigue for the Chicago Bulls, even though their own game against the Minnesota Timberwolves was meaningless. While the Bulls’ No. 6 seed was locked in, their opponent was still to be determined, though they were in line to be a heavy underdog no matter what given their late-season collapse and infamous struggles against elite teams.

When it was all said and done, the Milwaukee Bucks tanked their way out of the No. 2 seed and into the third spot with a loss and a Boston Celtics victory, setting up a first-round matchup between Central Division rivals. Of course, it hasn’t been much of a rivalry lately, with the Bucks going 4-0 in the season series and completely dominating the last two matchups by a total of 49 points. In fact, Giannis Antetokounmpo hasn’t lost to the Bulls since late 2017. Milwaukee has turned the tables since that 2015 playoff series.

Chicago is going to be a massive underdog in this series, and for good reason. After starting the season 39-21, the Bulls finished 7-15 to wind up at 46-36, picking up one final victory on Sunday over the Minnesota Timberwolves in a game that resembled a Summer League affair. Chicago did get career performances from Patrick Williams (35 points) and Ayo Dosunmu (26 points) to go into the playoffs on a positive note, but the final two months of the season were mostly a nightmare.

The Bulls got wrecked in four consecutive games prior to the season finale against the Timberwolves, not showing a lick of competitiveness against four fellow Eastern Conference postseason teams in the Miami Heat, Bucks, Boston Celtics and Charlotte Hornets. It continued a trend of non-competitiveness post-All-Star break, with Chicago ultimately posting a minus-7.1 net rating after the break, per NBA.com.

Injuries zapped the Bulls of their mojo, with the lengthy Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso absences doing them in. Zach LaVine also hasn’t been himself because of a nagging knee injury, while Williams just recently came back from a nasty wrist injury that knocked him out for almost all of 2021-22. The identity Chicago developed earlier in the season evaporated, making way for a team that couldn’t stop anybody and ultimately struggled to score as well coming down the stretch, even with DeMar DeRozan playing at close to an MVP level for most of the season.

Returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2017 still makes this season a success for the Bulls, but the play over the last few months has stained this resurgence and brought forth plenty of questions about the future of a roster led by DeRozan, LaVine and Nikola Vucevic. They now have one final chance to change the narrative against the defending champions, which is going to be quite the tall order. There’s very little reason to think Chicago can compete with Milwaukee in this series, especially with Ball not coming back and both LaVine and Caruso hurting. Even if those guys were healthy, the Bucks would be the heavy favorite because they have Giannis and have been dominant (37-10) when their star trio plays.

Given these circumstances, the pressure should now be off the Bulls as they head into the playoffs. Nobody is expecting anything of them, so they just need to come out and leave everything on the floor and see what happens. The most likely outcome is a relatively easy Bucks win, but Chicago can take some positive experiences from this series even if it’s a loss.

This will be LaVine’s first playoff appearance in his career, and perhaps this taste will help push him to re-sign in the offseason. Young players like Williams, Dosunmu and Coby White will get valuable postseason experience. Chicago can absolutely still salvage something from this second-half collapse.

Now it’s on the Bulls to show they can compete. Even though they’ll be outgunned, there’s no shame in a competitive loss. But if this turns into a bloodbath filled with ugly losses like the last few matchups, it will only leave Chicago with more questions on how to proceed into the future.

The Bulls will face the Bucks in Game 1 on Sunday. Game time is still to be determined.