The Chicago Bulls have been up and down through their four-game preseason slate.
Their first game against the Houston Rockets was an all-around clunker, which they quickly attributed to the extended layoff from competitive basketball. They rebounded nicely in the following two games, looking much more fluid offensively and competing more defensively.
And their final tuneup on Friday night — a 105-103 fourth-quarter comeback win against the Oklahoma City Thunder — featured a mixed bag, leaving it somewhat unclear where the team stands before they start the regular season Wednesday night against the Atlanta Hawks.
There were reasons to be encouraged.
Forward Lauri Markkanen bounced back from a pair of poor shooting performances, scoring 22 points (9 of 17 from the field) with five rebounds. Zach LaVine put up 20 points again and is beginning to look like he can roll out of bed and put up 20-point performances. Patrick Williams, starting at small forward for the second straight game, had a mostly forgettable game offensively, but appears to fit nicely with the starting lineup.
But there were also reasons to be skeptical what version of the Bulls will start the season.
With six players missing from the trip, the Bulls rotation remains in flux, they went through long dry spells on offense with a defense that broke down too often and Wendell Carter Jr. continued to struggle as a shooter, going 0 for 3 from 3-point range Friday to push his preseason performance to 1 for 16 from deep. Despite the continued encouragement from coach Billy Donovan, it’s fair to wonder how much of a shooting threat he can realistically be to start the season.
The Bulls rattled off three straight wins after that opening loss to the Rockets, but the ups and downs of their young core throughout the preseason was perhaps the best prelude to the regular season for a team that appears to still be enduring growing pains.
