Beneath the Box Score: When the Chicago Bulls Relearn How to Run

Beneath the Box Score: When the Chicago Bulls Relearn How to Run

In the 44th minute of a regular-season game at the United Center, the ball sat in Josh Giddey's hands at the top of the arc. No one shouted. No one clapped. A player in red quietly stepped up to set a screen at an opponent guard's hip and rolled away. Giddey did not shoot; he swung the ball to the wing, and ten seconds later, it was in the net.

The box score will list the name of whoever finished that possession. The moment that actually decided it lived in the footsteps of a player who never touched the ball a second time. That is something I learned from years at courtside and at the end of the bench — the court never lies; we simply have not been patient enough to hear it breathe.

And this season's Chicago Bulls have tested my patience more than most.

Context: a team turning a page

To understand why that moment matters, look at where the Bulls stood. For several seasons, this was a collection of isolation scorers. The ball moved slowly, dependent on star-driven possessions, and once a defense read the rhythm, everything collapsed like dominoes lined up too straight. Fans got used to counting a few names' points while the rest of the game passed in silence.

That summer, everything shifted direction. Big names left one after another. Alex Caruso was sent to the Oklahoma City Thunder in a deal for Josh Giddey. DeMar DeRozan signed with the Sacramento Kings. Zach LaVine also departed. The roster lost the men who used to anchor the box score but gained players who move the ball, cut off the ball, and do work without needing to be seen.

I once watched a night like that years ago at a Chicago Fire match, when a game at a community stadium nearly got cancelled for lack of a sponsor, and people had to forget big names to save the whole system. Basketball is the same. Some teams are saved only when they stop clinging to a few big names.

So the Bulls' regular-season story is not a story about scorers. It is a story about a team relearning how to run.

Core analysis: five lessons from the tactical flow

The first lesson is pace. This season's Bulls play noticeably faster. They push the ball up the floor before the defense can set. In games where they control the tempo, their rate of attempts within the first eight seconds of a possession rises sharply. It is a deliberate choice: if the roster no longer has a star who can carry a half with isolation, the best way to gain an edge is to attack before the defense can read you.

Fast pace is not only about conditioning. It is a tactical declaration. When you run first, every opponent error gets magnified. A rotation half a beat late, a step back not in time — all of it becomes space for the man trailing.

The second lesson is the passer. Josh Giddey is the model of a player who does not score much but makes everyone else score more easily. What I watch in Giddey is not assist totals but his release speed after catching the ball. He almost never holds it more than two beats. For a young roster, that decisiveness is worth its weight in gold. An inexperienced defense needs a conductor who knows exactly when to release the ball, and Giddey is growing into that role.

The real star is not the scorer but the one who makes teammates score more easily. That line still holds in Chicago; it just wears an Australian jersey now instead of a familiar name.

The third lesson is off-ball movement. This is the hardest part to see on television. Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu and Matas Buzelis — three players at three different career stages — are learning to cut as soon as the ball leaves the passer's hands. Backdoor cuts do not produce highlights, but they force a defense to choose: track the cutter, or cover the three-point shooter. You cannot do both.

That is why off-ball movement demands muscle memory and trust. The cutter must believe the ball will come. The passer must believe the cutter will arrive on time. On a young team, that trust does not appear on its own. It is built, practice by practice.

The fourth lesson is transition defense. This season's Bulls defend half-court possessions fairly pragmatically: they concede mid-range shots and accept losses in certain areas, trading that for rim protection and better rebound control. It is a common modern choice, but it only works when the defense stays disciplined enough not to break its own rules.

In games where they hold that discipline, opponent scoring efficiency drops markedly. In games where they lose focus, corner threes turn into rain. The difference is not talent. It is whether someone is standing in the right spot.

The fifth lesson, and perhaps the most important, is minutes distribution. Head coach Billy Donovan is rotating deeper than usual. He spreads minutes across more players, accepting a small trade-off in stability for development. That approach has a cost: a deep rotation often loses games it should win. But it also opens space for players who have never been seen.

I once told an editor that basketball is a game of those standing outside the spotlight. In a game there are about ten players on the floor, but only two or three have the ball at any moment. That means most of the time, most players work unnoticed. That is where the game truly happens.

The smallest detail on the court is where the biggest truth hides. That line is true for every team, but brutally true for one rebuilding from the ground up.

Contrarian angle: what the data does not tell you

There is one thing I increasingly believe: advanced metrics are being overused. They cannot explain a coach's decision in a specific possession. They cannot measure whether a player stood in the right spot. And they cannot tell you why a defense suddenly crumbles in the final three minutes.

With this season's Bulls, you can look at the numbers and see a mid-tier team with nothing special. But if you sit through twelve straight games, you see a different story. You see a team learning to trust. You see cuts that were mistimed two weeks ago now arriving on time. You see a young player hesitant to pass in October, confident in March.

Goalkeeper distribution has been mythologized in football, and basketball has its own illusions. People worship the three-pointer as if it were the whole game, while most made threes are created by a tilted screen, an off-ball cut, or a cross-court pass against the grain. If you only look at the score, you miss the true author of the possession.

The blind spot here is the obsession with results. Fans want to know who won. Metrics answer who was efficient. Neither answers the harder question: what makes a team improve week by week. The answer usually lies in things that cannot be counted — a passer's patience, a screener's sacrifice, a corner defender's consistency.

There is a paradox I want to put on the table: the players who do the most are the ones mentioned the least. In a game, someone must run the most to open space. Someone must absorb the most contact to hold the rim. Someone must sacrifice their shot to keep the team's rhythm. The box score has no column for any of it. But coaches do. And teammates remember. There are rescues no one sees, but the team remembers them for a lifetime.

I remember a night in Chicago when the game was decided and I stayed behind in an empty press room, listening to someone talk about a player who had worked all season without a single paper mentioning his name. They spoke of him as if he were the frame of a building. No one sees it, but without it, everything collapses.

That is why I care less and less about individual rankings. A player can post pretty numbers in a terrible defense, and it means nothing when the season reaches its decisive phase. Basketball is not arithmetic. It is the art of finding your place in a system that shifts by the minute.

The Bulls this season live inside that paradox. They can lose games everyone thought they would win. They can win games no one understands. But if you choose to sit and watch them run, you will see something the box score never tells: a team learning to become a team.

Light ahead: the variables of the remaining stretch

The big question for the rest of the season is not whether the Bulls make the playoffs. The better question is whether they keep that identity when the season turns brutal. When the schedule thickens, when injuries appear, when standings pressure rises, teams tend to revert to what is familiar. For the Bulls, the familiar was once isolation play and streaky shooting.

Their strength this season lies elsewhere: pace, ball movement, and trust being built day by day. If they keep all three, they will have a season that is not glorious but memorable. If they lose them, they return to the starting line.

I do not believe in spectacular comebacks; I believe in comebacks made of quiet footsteps. I have said that line many times, and every time I watch the Bulls run, I believe it more.

That night at the United Center, after the ball went in, I turned to my notes and wrote one line: the man who created the possession is not on the box score. It may be the only thing worth trusting in a game where everyone wants their own numbers to stand out.

In the months ahead, as I follow the Bulls, I will keep my eyes on other things. I will count the times an off-ball cutter opens space. I will count the possessions where a defender stands in the right spot without ever touching the ball. I will count the moments the whole team trusts each other enough to give away the last shot.

If the Chicago Bulls learn to hold that pace and that trust to the end of the season, they may not win a title, but they will leave behind a season that those who understand basketball remember for a long time. And perhaps, when the season closes, we will have to rewrite the list of important people — not by points, but by footsteps no one saw.

Basketball remains a game of silences. In games, there are moments when people roar as the ball goes in. But there are quieter moments, when ten players on the floor are reading each other. That is when the game is truly written.

For me, a Vietnamese man working in America, those quiet moments carry an extra layer of meaning. I have grown used to proving value without display. I have learned that discipline and minimalism often go unseen, yet they are what keeps everything standing. This season's Bulls embody that lesson.

Some teams do not need glory, only patience. Chicago may be one of them.

Every time the mic goes live, I remember how I once trembled, and it teaches me to speak slowly. Every time I watch basketball, I remember the court is not as loud as we think. It only waits for us to be calm enough to listen. And when we are patient enough, we see what the box score forgot.

From October to April, the game changes almost weekly. The Bulls' style will change too. But one thing I believe will remain: players who learned to work without being seen, and became the quiet heartbeat of a collective team.