BROOKLYN -- When Rajon Rondo finished talking to the media, he wanted to hear the song from the beginning. "Say no more, fam," Chicago Bulls star and locker room DJ Jimmy Butler shouted, retrieving his Beats Pill speaker and handing it to Rondo. Butler rushed back to his locker, grabbed his phone, started the track over and declared to anyone who was listening, "Do what your point guard tells you to do."
Butler, like everyone in the Bulls locker room on Monday, wore a massive smile on his face. And why shouldn't he? The team that was supposed to have shooting problems, defensive problems and, most of all, chemistry problems, had just walloped the Brooklyn Nets by a score of 118-88. With the win, Chicago was 3-0 for the first time since 1996-97.
If chemistry is a three-game winning streak, as the old adage goes, there is no better example than these Bulls. After coach Fred Hoiberg said that Dwyane Wade, Rondo and Butler -- the "three alphas," as Rondo dubbed them this past July -- have been spending time together at home and on the road, they all raved about how well they're getting along.
"[If] you're inside this locker room," Rondo said, "and you understand our chemistry and how we fight for each other, how we fight each other actually in practice every day, the way we compete -- it's translating on the court."
"Whenever you buy into it and you hang out as much as we do and you know each other the way that we do, I think it helps," Butler said. "I really believe it does. Me and Dwyane was talking about how this locker-room camaraderie, it really shows out there on the floor."
"Everyone in this locker room is playing for each other," Wade said. "Everybody likes each other in this locker room. And we just enjoy playing together. We're having fun on the basketball court together."
In the first quarter at Barclays Center, Chicago big man Taj Gibson grabbed a rebound and threw a quick outlet pass to Rondo. The point guard immediately zipped it down the court to Wade, who threw a touch pass to Butler for an alley-oop dunk. The possession took three seconds and the ball never touched the floor. In the fourth quarter, the crowd cheered Wade when he crossed over Nets swingman Bojan Bogdanovic and finished a 3-point play. It has been years since the Bulls have looked this exciting.
Through three games, Chicago had the best offensive rating in the league and, as the third-best 3-point-shooting team in the league, it made more 3s than its opponent in each game. The Bulls were also leading the NBA in rebounding percentage and assists per 36 minutes while playing solid defense without fouling. The question, of course, is how much of this is sustainable. Two of their early victims, the Indiana Pacers and the Boston Celtics, were on back-to-backs, and Brooklyn was the popular pick to be the worst team in the league.
Wade acknowledged that this is a small sample size and said that the real test will be when Chicago has to stay together and communicate when losing. He is optimistic about that, though, and smirked as he said that he wants to continue "to do things that people don't think we have a chance to do."
If the 3-0 start was stunning, then Wednesday's 107-100 loss in Boston was a bit of a return to reality. Celtics star Al Horford sat out because of a concussion and forward Jae Crowder played only 13 minutes because of an ankle injury. Despite these breaks, the Bulls found themselves down by 16 points early in the fourth quarter.
Their shooting was more in line with preseason expectations. Butler and Wade shot a combined 13 for 34, and the team went 7 for 20 from deep. That's a math problem -- the Celtics made 14 of their 32 attempts from 3-point range, and that kind of disparity is hard to overcome. When Butler led a comeback in the final frame, Hoiberg had reserves Nikola Mirotic, Isaiah Canaan and Bobby Portis on the court in place of Gibson, Rondo and Robin Lopez in order to provide spacing. Rondo checked back in near the end, but had trouble defending pick-and-rolls.
Still, there was a lot to like about Chicago's effort. It out-rebounded Boston, moved the ball quickly and tied the game with two minutes left. Some of the shooting struggles can be explained by the absence of Doug McDermott, who was sidelined because of a concussion.
"I like the fight in this team," Wade told reporters. "We gave ourselves a chance to win."
There's only so much you can know about a team after four regular-season games. Right now, though, the Bulls sound confident that they're going to make this work and there's some evidence they could be right. The passing has been better than expected, and the three alphas are clearly committed to taking 3s when they're in rhythm in order to preserve some semblance of spacing.
Lopez, meanwhile, has fit in nicely, serving as the team's defensive anchor and a passer and screen setter on the other end. Gibson is playing as well as he ever has. Butler even praised Hoiberg on Tuesday, saying he might have judged his coach too quickly last season and looks at him differently now.
On Friday, Chicago will be reminded of how much things have changed when it welcomes Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah back to the United Center. Given how poorly the New York Knicks have been playing, the Bulls will be the clear favorites. If they compete with the same spirit that they've shown so far, the skeptics won't have much to say.
