Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images
Nobody in the NBA is more clutch than the Chicago Bulls.
The Chicago Bulls can’t stop winning clutch games.
The Bulls beat the Utah Jazz, 119-117, on Wednesday night in Salt Lake City to keep the team’s incredible clutch alive. The Bulls have been a sub .500 team all year — they’re currently 26-28, ninth in the Eastern Conference — but they have an incredible knack for winning close games late. As Collin Sexton missed a wide open corner three at the buzzer that would have given the Jazz the win, Chicago’s staggering clutch numbers became even more impressive.
Want to beat the Bulls? You better blow them out. If it’s a close game at end of regulation, Chicago is probably going to find a way to win. The Bulls have now won five straight games in the clutch — defined by games within five points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. The season-long clutch numbers for the Bulls are truly unbelievable:
Chicago’s 21 clutch wins lead the NBA
The Bulls have the best clutch defense in the NBA with a ridiculous 97.2 defensive rating
The Bulls’ net-rating in clutch games is +21.8, third best in the NBA. The Bulls’ normal net-rating is -1.5, which ranks No. 20 in the NBA.
The Bulls’ biggest weapon in crunch-time is DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan has been on-fire as a clutch scorer all season, posting a blazing 64.6 true shooting percentage in clutch situations. DeRozan was absurdly good down the stretch in Chicago’s last two wins against the Sacramento Kings on Monday and Jazz on Wednesday. DeRozan out-scored the Kings by himself in the fourth quarter by going 7-of-7 from the field with some unreal shot-making. Against the Jazz, DeRozan scored 17 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter to will Chicago to the win.
No player in NBA history has done that before:
Last two 4th quarters for the @chicagobulls‘ DeMar DeRozan:
19 points in win at Sacramento
17 points in win at Utah
He’s the only NBA player in the last 25 years to score 17+ points in the 4th quarter in back-to-back road wins (with no other games in between). pic.twitter.com/NSERvyVlLV
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) March 7, 2024
What’s even more amazing about DeRozan’s clutch performance is that he’s doing it while facing the league’s heaviest minutes load. DeRozan leads the NBA in minutes per game at 34-years-old. He’s played 60 of a possible 62 games this season. This is the 15th season of DeRozan’s career, and it’s his second-heaviest minutes load ever.
The Bulls are getting out-scored in every quarter except for the fourth over the course of the season. Chicago has a negative net-rating in each of the first three quarters, but is +3.9 in the fourth, and then totally dominates overtime sessions. The Bulls are getting crushed in all other minutes, but somehow kick ass in the fourth.
The Bulls as a team are +82 in the clutch this season, first in the NBA. They are -167 in all other minutes
— Jason Patt (@Bulls_Jay) March 5, 2024
The Bulls were a very good clutch team two seasons ago, highlighted by DeRozan’s back-to-back buzzer-beating game-winners on New Years Eve and New Years Day. Last year, the Bulls were a middling clutch team, and it contributed to the team having a way worse record than their net-rating would indicate.
Are the Bulls really that good in the clutch? In reality, they’re mostly very lucky. Opponents are shooting just 38 percent from the field and 25 percent from three in the clutch against the Bulls, per NBA.com. Some of that is because Alex Caruso is perhaps the best non-center defensive player in the NBA. But Sexton’s wide open missed corner three on Wednesday night is an example of how lucky the Bulls have been in close games.
The Bulls will likely need to win two single-elimination games in the play-in tournament to make the playoffs. Chicago had an unforgivably poor trade deadline, doing nothing despite real interest in Caruso and Andre Drummond. Chicago’s best case scenario for their present is getting slaughtered in the first round by the Celtics. Their future is a lot more bleak, with the team still owing a first round pick to the San Antonio Spurs for the DeRozan trade.
The Bulls better make the playoffs this season, because chances are their clutch luck will reverse next year. As DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic continue to age, their performance will drop (Vucevic has one of the worst scoring efficiencies for a high-volume shooting in the league this year). As our old friends at Blog-a-Bull wrote, it’s cheaper to be clutch than good.
The Bulls are incredibly clutch. They are still not very good. As long as Chicago has the game close at the end of regulation, though, they can count on DeRozan, Caruso, and the rest of their supporting cast to bring them an unlikely win. It’s simply been happening all year.
