The Bulls have a closer on the roster.
Make that had a closer.
It’s easy to forget what Kris Dunn did during his inaugural season with the Bulls, especially in the first half of the year when Zach LaVine was still in street clothes, recovering from anterior cruciate ligament surgery, and Lauri Markkanen was a baby-faced rookie just learning his way.
Two clutch free throws with seven seconds left to help beat the Knicks on Dec. 9 of that 2017-18 season. A dagger of a jumper with 22 seconds left against Utah four days later. Another crunch-time jumper and a free throw to down Detroit on Jan. 13.
Former coach Fred Hoiberg anointed Dunn the closer and the then-starting point guard embraced it.
“Down the stretch I definitely want to have the ball in my hands,’’ Dunn said during his hot streak back then. “My team, my coaching staff, they give me the confidence to do it, so I’m going to go out there and try and make the right play, the right read, keep being aggressive.’’
Through Jan. 1 of that season, it’s easy to forget that Dunn was the second-leading fourth-quarter scorer on the team, and was shooting a ridiculous 49 percent from the field in that final quarter.
It wasn’t that long ago. It just feels like it recently.
This year’s version of the Bulls has lost three straight close games and 17 overall. What do they have as far as a closer? A mess.
Not only have the starters been bad late in games when coach Jim Boylen has reinserted them for crunch-time, but individually LaVine has been trying to fill that hero role and has fallen short.
The Bulls have taken steps to further embrace analytics this season, so here’s a look at just how bad they are late in games statistically in their newest language and where the blame should really go.
There’s a fun little stat called net rating, which is the differential of points per 100 possessions. As a team, the Bulls have a -3.1 net rating overall through the first 25 games.
In the last five minutes of games when the score is within five points either way — basically when Boylen has his starters back in there, with the exception of times when he’s kept the hot hand over a starter — that net rating is a -10.6. The Bulls have had played 14 games in that scenario.
In the last three minutes of games where that score is within five — 11 games played by the Bulls this season — it drops to -14.5. So while it’s been easy to point a finger at LaVine in the last possession games played this week, the starting group as a whole has failed.
LaVine shouldn’t be in that situation if the closing unit as a group wouldn’t stumble in the last three-to-five minutes.
That’s why Boylen was so animated in his post-game media session after the 93-92 loss to Toronto on Monday.
“The starters’ job is to come back in, get re-engaged in the game, and close it out,’’ Boylen said. “That’s what [Toronto] did. They brought their guys in and they closed the game out. We have to learn how to do that. That’s the growth plate. We’re close, we’re right there. That’s the next step.’’
What numbers can’t answer, however, is will this group even be capable of closing? Is it in their DNA?
“I coach by faith,’’ Boylen said of that question. “I coach and teach every day on where I think we’re going to be. When that’s going to happen, when that’s going to break through, I’m not sure. But I’m going to keep coaching that way.’’
