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The Chicago Bulls’ dream start to the 2025-26 NBA season ended emphatically on Sunday with a 128-116 loss to the New York Knicks. New York shot 20-for-42 from 3-point range (47.6 percent) and 13-for-21 (61.9 percent) in the first half — a statistic that highlighted the Bulls’ overlooked inability to defend the three-ball.<\/p>\n
Billy Donovan’s squad has been one of the league’s most pleasant surprises over the year’s first few weeks. Chicago started 5-0 for the first time since the 1996-97 campaign and was the second-to-last team to finally draw an “L” (the defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder are the only remaining unbeaten).<\/p>\n
Of course, the Bulls were never going to go 82-0; a road loss to one of the Eastern Conference’s title favorites shouldn’t be construed as a massive disappointment. But some parts of Chicago’s hot start were less sustainable than others, and one of those came crashing back to reality in Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
The Bulls entered Sunday’s tilt allowing opposing teams to shoot just 30.1 percent on threes. That was the best mark in the NBA.<\/p>\n
This is where small sample sizes truly come into play.<\/p>\n
The Detroit Pistons shot 29.2 percent from deep in Chicago’s opening-night 115-111 win. They’re up to 34.8 percent as a team through six games.<\/p>\n
The offensively inept Orlando Magic shot 12.5 percent from three in game two; they’re shooting 33.5 percent on the year. The Atlanta Hawks shot 34.4 percent from long range, a game in which the Bulls had to rally late to win. The Sacramento Kings hit just 25.0 percent of their threes; they’re one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the league at 37.0 percent.<\/p>\n
It’s fair to say that Chicago benefited from its opponents missing an unusually high number of shots from deep. Even after the Knicks loss, the Bulls are the NBA’s sixth-best team at defending the 3-point line, holding opponents to just 33.8 percent on the year. The league-wide 3-point shooting percentage is two entire points higher at 35.8 percent.<\/p>\n
Cleaning the Glass<\/em> has a helpful stat called location effective field-goal percentage, which calculates a team’s field-goal percentage allowed if its opponents shot the league average from every spot on the floor. Despite sitting third in 3-point percentage against, the Bulls are dead last in Loc eFG%.<\/p>\n It’s a fancy way of saying the Bulls are giving up good looks from everywhere. Teams just aren’t making them.<\/p>\n Chicago wasn’t good at defending the three last season, and despite how the numbers look so far this year, they’re still not great at it. The Knicks exposed a weakness that is easily repeatable: Shoot a decent amount of 3-pointers and make them at an even average clip, and the Bulls could bleed points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Chicago Bulls finally lost for the first time this season thanks to a barrage of efficient offense from the Knicks, particularly from one area of the floor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":117006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"yoast_head":"\n