The Chicago Bulls put on a show on Wednesday night against the Indiana Pacers. When you hear the sentence in the context of today’s NBA, you usually envision a scoring Master Class. But the Bulls did the opposite. They completely shut down one of the best offenses in the NBA, holding the Pacers to 99 points.
It was the first time all season that the Pacers failed to crack the 100-point mark, and it was Chicago’s defensive pressure that forced the issue. Last year, the Bulls were a top-five defense in the league, but so far this season, they have been fairly subpar on that side of the ball.
After the win over Indiana, Alex Caruso spoke about what the Bulls need to do to get back to their great defensive ways of last year (H/t Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times)
“Being consistent with our effort and discipline, knowing the assignments, keeping guys off the free-throw line,” Caruso said. “If we can do that consistently we are a good defensive team. We’ve had some slippage in that area, but we know we can do it right.”
With guys like Caruso, newly-re-signed Javonte Green, Ayo Dosunmu, and others leading the way, the Bulls have all the pieces to be a very annoying defense for opponents to deal with.
