Trend to watch: Running of the Bulls

Derrick Rose and the Bulls are playing at a slightly below-average pace, like last season, but 18.1 percent of their possessions have come in transition. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/US PRESSWIRE)

Chicago’s offense has been a thing to monitor for about a year now. We know the Bulls will be among the league’s best defensive teams, but if they want to knock off the league’s very best teams four times in seven games, they’ll need to be better offensively than they were last season.

And they were actually pretty good last season — just above average, ranking 11th in the league in points per possession. But as Kevin Arnovitz noted last week, they were overly reliant on Derrick Rose pick-and-roll plays, a dependence that made them needlessly predictable given the talent surrounding Rose. And as I noted when Chicago signed Richard Hamilton, the Bulls, in comparison with the rest of the league, finished very few possessions with post-up plays or fast-break chances. If they wanted to jump another level on offense, they probably have to diversify things a bit.

Through five games, including three against teams that have been awful defensively so far this season (the Warriors, Kings and Clippers), the Bulls have the second-most efficient offense in the league. They have scored about 111 points per 100 possessions, a number that would have ranked sixth last season but is good for second so far this season, since the league’s overall scoring efficiency has plummeted as expected, given the reduced training camp. Still, that’s a jump of about three points per 100 possessions over Chicago’s average last season — a  big difference.

But it’s not even close to meaningful yet, given the small sample size. And a surface glance at Chicago’s offense suggests it is structurally similar to last season’s so-so unit; the Bulls are playing at a slightly below-average pace, just like last season, and they are relying on some monster offensive rebounding to augment ho-hum shooting numbers. The Bulls are a great offensive rebounding team, but they can’t sustain their current rate of rebounding nearly 35 percent of their own misses; no team has even snatched 33 percent over a full season since 2003-04.

But the surface glance misses something big, something that will be important if the Bulls can sustain it: The Bulls are running whenever they sense a chance. About 18.1 percent of Chicago’s possessions have come in transition, according to Synergy Sports. Only Miami and Denver have devoted a greater share of possessions to fast breaks. Those two teams have played faster than others, so it’s not surprising that they’ve used about one-fifth of their possessions on transition chances.

To see a relatively slow team like Chicago do that too is strange, and it points to two things:

1. The Bulls are looking for easy baskets when they see an opening. You can see this when you watch them play — they are running off of turnovers and when opponents are less than perfect in retreating on defense. Just about every Chicago player — post guys, outside shooters, rim attackers like Rose — has gotten out on the break more often this season, and guys like Hamilton and Kyle Korver have feasted on open perimeter looks in transition.

2. The Bulls have played some teams with leaky transition defenses. The Lakers, Kings, Grizzlies and Warriors all rank among the league’s bottom 10 teams in fast-break points allowed, and Sacramento has been especially irresponsible with its transition defense in stretches. Since we’re early in the season, it’s fair to ask how much those bad numbers have to do with those particular teams and how much they stem from those teams having already faced a newly amped-up Chicago club. The truth usually likes in the middle.

In other words, the question is: Can the Bulls keep scoring so efficiently and so often in transition while playing at an average pace and forcing turnovers at an average rate? Probably not. Doing so would require spotting nearly every workable fast-break chance and converting a very high percentage of those chances.

The numbers will come back to the mean a bit, but if they settle higher than last season, the Bulls will be better off. And this isn’t the only spice Chicago has added to its offense. Rose used up 32.2 percent of Chicago’s possessions last season via a shot, turnover or drawn foul; only Kobe Bryant had a higher usage rate. Rose so far this season has used “only” 25.5 percent of Chicago’s possessions, a bit low for a star of his caliber. The shooting guards, including Hamilton and Ronnie Brewer (hitting threes, in a trend that probably won’t last), have taken some of Rose’s possessions, though Joakim Noah also looks primed for a larger role. And Chicago seems to be using more screen-the-screener action, where the man assigned to set a high screen for Rose runs through a separate pick on his way there, something that gets the defense moving and introduces more chaos into things.

Rose himself is getting better at throwing those thread-the-needle pocket passes on pick-and-rolls with Carlos Boozer, especially when Boozer’s man jumps out early to try to cut off Rose. Boozer is good at sliding into open space, and Rose is developing better feel and timing for when to feed him.

Again, we have to see how this plays out as the season goes on and Chicago faces different opponents. Boozer also probably needs to see the ball more; he is using fewer possessions than at any time since his rookie year, and has attempted just 11 foul shots and dished just four assists this season. The Bulls need him to do more. But the early signs overall are encouraging for Chicago’s offense.