The Rotation: The Chicago Bulls are the NBA’s best offense

The NBA regular season is a freight train that waits for no one. With multiple games nearly every single night, it can be difficult to keep up. As a solution, we humbly offer The Rotation — a daily recap series sharing three big stories from the previous night, one focused on a player, one focused on a play, one focused on the big picture.

33 from the 46th best player in the NBA

By John Buhler (@buhler118)

The Toronto Raptors should be one of the best basketball teams in the NBA this year. They are coming off the most successful season in franchise history — the 2015-16 Raptors went 56-26, making it all the way to the 2016 Eastern Conference Finals. Optimism is fed by the fact that their two best players were Olympic gold medalists for Team USA in the 2016 Rio Games.

In 2015-16, Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry earned the respect of his peers as one of the best floor generals in the NBA. His backcourt partner shooting guard DeMar DeRozan is a two-time NBA All-Star and one of the best mid-range scorers in the game. However, respect for DeRozan’s game seems a little more…uneven…around the league.

This summer, Sports Illustrated listed DeRozan as the 46th best player in the NBA entering 2016-17, a ranking that was reasonable considering his past accomplishments and the depth of talent in the league. Well, DeRozan didn’t care for that and has taken his frustrations out on his early season opponents.

DeRozan has had at least 32 points in his first three games this season. On Monday night against the Denver Nuggets, Toronto needed all of DeRozan’s 33 points to win at home, 105-102. He was 13 of 23 from the field (56.5 percent) and made 7-9 free throws. DeRozan did not connect on his lone three-point attempt, but did grab five boards, had one assist, and one steal.

Lowry played outstanding as well with 29 points, on 50 percent shooting, five rebounds, five assists, and three steals. However, without DeRozan’s 20-point first half against Denver, the Raptors don’t move to 2-1 on the year by outlasting the Nuggets at home on Halloween Night.

Every year someone gets jilted in by someone’s preseason NBA player rankings. It’s early, but DeRozan is a clear-front runner for that distinction. Using that perceived snub as fuel, he is playing at a superstar level. That’s good news for The North and bad news for the rest of the Eastern Conference.

Lob City is done when they say they’re done

By David Rouben (@david_rouben)

Coming into this season, the talk around Los Angeles how this was the last year for the Clippers to really make a run at a title. This core has been one of the best in the NBA, but for some reason they could never get over the hump in the playoffs. Before the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead, the Clippers’ second-round exits were the staple joke on basketball Twitter.

Read More: Isaiah Thomas sees a bright future

With J.J. Redick set to become a free agent at the end of this season, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin expected to opt out of their deals, and DeAndre Jordan holding the right to do the same a year later, this really is the last chance for this core to make a deep playoff run. After opening their schedule against two powerhouse teams in the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers, the Clippers got a bit of a breather in the Phoenix Suns. It could’ve been a trap game, but they controlled it from start to finish.

They played with the same brand of basketball that we’ve come to expect from them. Watching highlights of Lob City should be nothing new by now, but they always seem to wow you. The key players in this contest were Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. Both of them had double-doubles in this game, but it was The Blake Show tonight.

Blake is elite when it comes to creating offense, and he can kill you in many different ways. He’s an excellent dunker, great at passing, an underrated shooter, and an outstanding dribbler. We saw him execute a superb move to the basket in the third quarter:

Then in the fourth, with the game well out of reach, he blew past four guys before lobbing it over to DeAndre:

Nobody’s more frustrated at how Griffin’s season went last year than Griffin himself. If these highlights are an indication of anything, it’s that he’s on a mission this year.

Most of DeAndre’s work in this game came from crashing the boards. He had three offensive rebounds and eight on the defensive end. He finished with 19 points, but 12 of those came off of assists — eight came off of assists by Blake Griffin. Here’s a collection of some of those trademark lobs that Jordan finished off:

If Griffin leaves next year, Jordan will still be valuable to the Clippers. He’s an elite rim protector, and an outstanding role player. But as far as offense goes, he’s going to miss his buddy.
If healthy, the Clippers are viewed as one of the few teams that can actually take down Golden State. That’s because their weakness comes in the post, and Griffin and Jordan are the prime candidates to exploit that.

Last year, the Spurs were supposed to be that team because they could match Golden State’s small-ball lineups by going big, but Oklahoma City beat them at their own game in the playoffs. However, Griffin and Jordan are more versatile offensively than Serge Ibaka and Steven Adams, and can help guys like Chris Paul and J.J. Redick in that department. They can also use their physicality to frustrate the Warriors.

After Durant signed in Golden State, it was assumed that a third straight Finals matchup between the Cavs and Warriors was inevitable. But the Clippers have a better record than the Warriors, and they’ll be out to prove that the Western Conference race won’t be as easy as people think.

The Chicago Bulls have the best offense in the NBA

By Philip Rossman-Reich (@philrsquared)

The Chicago Bulls were not supposed to have enough space to operate. There was not enough shooting to spread the floor. There was not enough basketball for Jimmy Butler, Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo to share. The coach wanted to run a motion offense for a group of players that would rather slow the ball down.

The Chicago Bulls were not supposed to run smoothly. Least of all at the beginning of the season as the team learned how to play together. The pieces did not fit.

Yet, through three games, the Chicago Bulls’ offense is not only humming along smoothly. It is thriving. Thriving to the point it is the best offense in the league — leading the league in offensive efficiency with a whopping 114.7 points per 100 possessions. This is not how things are supposed to go with this team.

How are the Bulls doing this?

Perhaps playing and defeating the Brooklyn Nets 118-88 at Barclays Center on Monday is not the best evidence of who this team is or where they will go. But they displayed the formula for a team without shooters to score and score a lot.

It starts with defense. Unlike the plodding Tom Thibodeau era, defense for the Bulls is used to spark fast breaks. Fast breaks like this:

This is how a team without shooters attacks and scores. They do so quickly and decisively. Here the Bulls’ lack of floor spacing and shooting did not matter. Instead, their speed and one-on-one decision-making were at their zenith.

Chicago played at a 104.1 pace Monday. For the season, the Bulls’ pace is up to 99.0 from 98.3. It is still early, the Bulls will settle in more. But that defense and the defensive potential — Robin Lopez anchoring the middle with Jimmy Butler, Rajon Rondo and Taj Gibson as defensive minded players who get out on the break quick — seem to be going a long way to setting the base for the Bulls.

Chicago had 18 fastbreak points and the Bulls use that strong defense to create their offense before teams can load up and pack the paint against them. Right now the confidence is flowing and they are able to break down defenses. At least they can break down the Nets easily.

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And when the Bulls cannot get out in transition, they still have the star power to succeed and get the defense’s respect. Rondo can still get into the paint and rack up assists just as Wade can. Wade and Butler can both still get into the paint and score at will.

There will be times the Bulls offense bogs down. In the halfcourt, it is still based on one-on-one brilliance. They have the players to do that but it is not always efficient.

But right now, the Bulls are the model of efficiency. They have defied convention and they are even making 3s (11 for 27 on Monday). This is the best offense in the NBA.