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Westerlund: Bulls Look Mentally Ready For Playoffs, But Not Physically

By Cody Westerlund-

CHICAGO (CBS) – It's Jan. 25, and the Bulls are mentally ready for the playoffs.

We know this because another average basketball team visited the United Center on Sunday afternoon, and Chicago responded in its typical fashion when an ordinary foe visits town – with poor basketball. The result this time was a 96-84 loss to the Heat in front of a national television audience, with the Bulls falling behind early, trying to play catch-up and then Hassan Whiteside rejecting the comeback attempt, quite literally as he recorded his first career triple-double with 14 points, 13 rebounds and 12 blocks that often left Chicago hopeless in its scoring endeavors.

That the Bulls lost to the Heat came as no surprise. As much as anything, this team has become synonymous with lackadaisical basketball at home, where it's 13-11, a stark contrast to the NBA's third-best road record at 16-6.

Time and again, the Bulls have been asked how they can follow up stellar play and quality wins against some of the NBA's best (the Grizzlies, the Trail Blazers, the Rockets and most recently the Spurs and the Mavericks) with humbling performance against bad teams.

Time and again, the Bulls fall back on buzzwords like "energy" and "effort" to describe their shortcomings. That's correct to an extent, but it's also used as a cover. What the Bulls don't tend to say provides a better explanation.

They're a veteran-laden group, and that goes a long way toward explaining the up-and-down play. Not only is it more difficult to physically bring a sustained level of high play every night, there's little fretting mentally over any one thing at hand. Championship aspirations remain the big-picture focus.

It leads to days like Sunday, when a third game in 66 hours turns into a snoozefest.

"We got to have the right kind of energy," Taj Gibson said. "Sometimes I think that in our head, we think we're so good that we can just step on the court (and win). And it's tough. Teams are out gunning for us. There's a lot of speculation about how good we can be and how good we are. And teams take pride in trying to beat us, seeing how far they can go. We just have to learn from it."

That the Bulls don't seem engaged sometimes shouldn't be concerning. There's little reason to think they won't bring the intensity every night when it matters most, for they remain a proud group and aware of the stakes. Some numbers back that up too, as Chicago is 6-3 against current Western Conference playoff teams, which is some of the best competition the Bulls have faced this season.

What still matters most for the Bulls is overcoming their basketball shortcomings. The big man pairing of Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah still hasn't meshed well enough yet, and coach Tom Thibodeau tacitly acknowledged that Sunday when he didn't play Noah for the game's final 15:42.

Thibodeau explained that he liked how his second unit was performing in the fourth quarter and added preserving Noah as he works his way back to better health after offseason knee surgery is also a focus, but he's been toying with the rotation lately in various ways because he knows troubles persist.

The mixing of new pieces has also often resulted in ordinary defense by a team that built its reputation on that end as well. Defensive struggles are a pet peeve of Thibodeau's, and he constantly reminds that only way to get better is through hard practice.

This veteran Chicago team remains mentally fine, even if it checks out too often. The catch for the Bulls comes in whether they can stay healthy while going hard enough to fix their on-court problems and whether they have enough left in the tank for the long haul.

"It's the NBA," Gibson said. "To contend for a championship, we have to go through these tough tasks. There's no excuses. We just got to bounce back."

Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for CBSChicago.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.

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