For their first 24 minutes in the game against the Thunder in Oklahoma City, Okla., on Wednesday, the Chicago Bulls couldn’t hit a shot if it wasn’t behind the 3-point arc.
Coby White kept the Bulls in the game by hitting six 3s — three times as many shots as the entire team made from inside the restricted area.
Eventually the offense kicked back into a more regular gear. But that first half drudged up a familiar frustration for a team struggling to find any sort of spark — why can’t the Bulls hit their layups?
“When that happens it gets a bit deflating,” coach Billy Donovan said. “You’re going to get down the way we got down when you don’t shoot the ball from anywhere. That’s been the issue for us. We’ve had a couple halves where we’ve had 39 or 40 points. We, for whatever reason, haven’t been able to shoot the ball consistently through the course of the game.”
Last season the Bulls were proficient from within the restricted area, shooting 66.8% on 27.2 attempts per game. It wasn’t the most impressive showing, but it still placed them in the top half of the league in the category, an important boost for a team with the seventh-worst offense in the NBA.
But in the opening weeks of this season, the bottom dropped out of the previously reliable aspect of the offense. Through 16 games entering their 121-108 road loss to the Toronto Raptors on Friday night, the Bulls shot 60.7% from within 4 feet of the basket — the third-worst accuracy in the league.
The Bulls are getting to the rim — that’s not the problem. They produce 26.7 attempts per game from within the restricted area — 14th highest volume in the league on pace with stronger offenses such as the Thunder. But once they get there, the shots aren’t falling.
To be fair, shots aren’t falling for the Bulls in general. In the first fifth of the season, the Bulls have the fourth-worst shooting percentage (43.8%) in the league.
But missing layups is a specific mental blow — after all, they’re nicknamed “bunnies” for a reason — that risks trickling down to shot confidence across the floor.
The issue starts at the top. Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic have seen major drops in their accuracy. LaVine’s shooting has fallen from 67.1% at the rim last season to 58.4% in the first 16 games, while Vucevic’s has plummeted from a team-best 70.4% last year to 59.3%.
They are supposed to be two of the most surefire players on the roster at close range — LaVine as a slashing star who can finish any shot at the rim, Vucevic as an efficient closer on the block. DeMar DeRozan is the only member of the trio to remain consistent, shooting only 1.5% lower from within the restricted area.
Not every player has seen an individual dip in this statistic. Alex Caruso has improved from 70.3% to 74.1% this season. Coby White has seen a slight dip in accuracy but he also has nearly doubled his production at the rim, a reflection of his heightened offensive tasks.
But the result is still a team-wide drop-off in finishing at the rim. Every player who finished the 2022-23 season with the Bulls shot at least 60% from within the restricted area. Through 16 games this season, only five have shot above 60%.
This has led to an odd realignment for the Bulls — one that was reflected in Wednesday’s game, when White’s 3-point shooting kept the Bulls alive.
Relative to the rest of the league, the Bulls have become better at shooting 3s than 2s. They’re third-worst in the league in 2-point percentage (49.3%) while only eighth-worst (34.8%) from 3-point range. (In first halves, their 2-point accuracy drops to 43.6%, the worst in the NBA.) And their 3-point frequency has risen to 38.3% of their shot volume, rising to 16th from last in the league last season.
That’s still comparing bad to slightly less bad. But it’s a strange shift for the Bulls, who are used to thriving within the arc while struggling from behind it.
Players and coaches haven’t offered much in the way of solutions. There’s a shared belief that shots will begin to — and have to begin to — fall eventually.
“We just got to make shots, man,” White said. “You can’t control missing or making shots. That’s out of our control as a team. So for us, we’ve just got to keep playing the right way, keep trusting each other and keep uplifting each other.”