92’ Bulls lost the most playoff games of any Bulls title team

[Hook_Em]

The Bulls lost 7 playoff games in 92’ including needing a game 7 vs the Knicks (which was a blowout). I remember seeing the highlights of game 1 vs Portland thinking they blew them out of the series but it was 2-2 after game 4. It was odd given Pippen had reached all-NBA status by then and MJ was in his absolute prime… Any particular reason why it wasn’t as easy of a playoff run as the other years?

[PistolPeteJR]

MJ wasn't taking it seriously. But then seeing it was 2-2, in Game 5, MJ gave Clyde a look at tipoff and it intimidated Clyde and the Blazers so much they just shrunk. That's the power of Jordan. /s

For real though, mental fatigue was definitely a factor.

[TheGOATRises007]

It's not easy to repeat and the Blazers were a good team.

[tsherkin]

It's not easy to repeat and the Blazers were a good team.

And the Knicks' D was no joke.

[DirtyDez]

Nitpick city but they shouldn’t have lost more than 5 game tops given their talent and arc. They were #1 Net and had the two best athletes in the league.

[OhayoKD]

The Bulls lost 7 playoff games in 92’ including needing a game 7 vs the Knicks (which was a blowout). I remember seeing the highlights of game 1 vs Portland thinking they blew them out of the series but it was 2-2 after game 4. It was odd given Pippen had reached all-NBA status by then and MJ was in his absolute prime… Any particular reason why it wasn’t as easy of a playoff run as the other years?

-> Fatigue
-> the knicks being better than their seed,
-> horace and pippen playing worse offense than their rs selves and their 91 playoff selves
-> Jordan getting exploited defensively vs the knicks and the blazers

All considered, the drop wasn't that bad: Chicago goes from 9th[b] in sansteere's list during the regular season to [b]34th in the playoffs. Not close to the biggest fall-off for a champion(2000 lakers) but it takes off some of the shine

It's not easy to repeat and the Blazers were a good team.

And the Knicks' D was no joke.

Oddly enough, it was actually the Knicks Offensive-rating that went up against Chicago. Chicago's offense did about as well as it did in the rs. O/D distributions aren't exactly gospel thoguh.

[tsherkin]

Oddly enough, it was actually the Knicks Offensive-rating that went up against Chicago. Chicago's offense did about as well as it did in the rs. O/D distributions aren't exactly gospel thoguh.

They were -4.3 ORTG relative to the regular season in that series. Jordan dropped a 53.9% TS series against his RS of 57.9%. New York was -1.8 relative to their RS ORTG. Ewing was pretty rough at the line and then shot about 3 or 4% worse from the field.

Of course, Jordan's series average is heavily influenced by the 9/25 FG with 7 turnover stinker he dropped in game 6. But still.

[lessthanjake]

I think it mostly just comes down to the fact that sometimes a team isn’t in its best form in the playoffs. For most great teams, they don’t win a title in those years. But Jordan and the Bulls were so good that the team not being in the best form just resulted in the title being less easy than normal.

Of course, it doesn’t help that they faced good opponents.

The Blazers were a genuinely really good team that had averaged 7.30 SRS in a three-year span. Beating them in six games was honestly about what you’d expect, and I don’t regard this as an underperformance. So it’s really about the earlier series.

The Knicks had a great defense and probably were a better team than their record and SRS would suggest (and they did do better in those regards in the next couple seasons), but it was still a bit surprising that they took the Bulls to 7 games and IMO that did in part reflect the Bulls not playing their best. Another factor with the Knicks series is that teams that are inferior but have really good defense can often slow the pace down a lot and thereby make close games more likely and then hope to squeak by through winning close games. That’s essentially what the Knicks did. The pace of the series was a glacial 83.1 (in a league context that hadn’t gotten particularly slow yet), and the Knicks were outscored by a good bit overall but took it to 7 games in large part by winning a couple close low-scoring games. It’s a good strategy for an overmatched team to take (because the fewer possessions there are, the more random the result will be, and therefore the higher the overmatched team’s chances of victory). And it came somewhat close to working, even though the Bulls were suited well for slow-pace games. So, basically, with the Knicks I think it came down to a combination of the Bulls not playing their best and the Knicks having a good strategy to try to grind the series out against a stronger opponent.

Dropping two games to the Cavaliers was a bit of an underperformance from the Bulls, IMO. The Cavaliers were a 5.34 SRS team and winning in six games is relatively comfortable, but it was pretty close for a six-game series, and I think the Bulls were good enough to beat those Cavs in 4 or 5 games. So I think the Bulls taking six games to beat the Cavs was reflective of the Bulls not being in their best form.

Ultimately, the end result of this was still a title, but I do think if the 1992 Bulls had been in the type of playoff form that most of the other Bulls title teams were in in the playoffs, they probably would’ve dropped 2-4 fewer playoff games that year. A team isn’t going to be in its best form in the playoffs every year though. The way dynasties happen is when a team is so far above the other teams that it can underperform in the playoffs and still win the title. That’s what happened with the 1992 Bulls.

[Djoker]

The 92 Blazers were very strong in the playoffs before running into the Bulls. They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way.

For me the only real underperformance for the Bulls was against the Cavs. It feels like that series should have been easier.

[Colbinii]

The 92 Blazers were very strong in the playoffs before running into the Bulls. They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way.

For me the only real underperformance for the Bulls was against the Cavs. It feels like that series should have been easier.

Did they?

In round 1 they faced a putrid Lakers team (Missing James Worthy).

Round 2 they won in 5 games with an MOV of 3.2 PPG.

Round 3 they won in 6 games with an MOV of 6.5 PPG.

I'd consider both Phoenix and Utah to be good teams but not really title contenders. Portland was definitely the cream of the crop out West though with an elite Top 7, including Ainge/Cliff off the bench.

[lessthanjake]

The 92 Blazers were very strong in the playoffs before running into the Bulls. They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way.

For me the only real underperformance for the Bulls was against the Cavs. It feels like that series should have been easier.

Did they?

In round 1 they faced a putrid Lakers team (Missing James Worthy).

Round 2 they won in 5 games with an MOV of 3.2 PPG.

Round 3 they won in 6 games with an MOV of 6.5 PPG.

I'd consider both Phoenix and Utah to be good teams but not really title contenders. Portland was definitely the cream of the crop out West though with an elite Top 7, including Ainge/Cliff off the bench.

In Round 1, they did face a putrid Lakers team, but had a +14.8 average MOV. Not much can be said about a series against a team that wasn’t good, but a +14.8 average MOV is certainly at least consistent with the Blazers being a great team. In Round 2, the Blazers had a +3.2 average MOV against a team with a regular season 5.68 SRS (the 4th highest SRS in the league that season), which is also quite consistent with the Blazers being a great team. Next, in Round 3, they had a +6.5 average MOV against a team with a 5.70 SRS (which was the 3rd highest SRS in the NBA that season—behind only the Bulls and Blazers). That’s great too. Overall, that’s like a 11.52 SRS in the first three rounds of the playoffs—including fairly easily beating the 3rd and 4th highest SRS teams in the league. And that’s after having a 6.94 SRS in the regular season. The 1992 Blazers were a genuinely really good team.

[Colbinii]

The 92 Blazers were very strong in the playoffs before running into the Bulls. They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way.

For me the only real underperformance for the Bulls was against the Cavs. It feels like that series should have been easier.

Did they?

In round 1 they faced a putrid Lakers team (Missing James Worthy).

Round 2 they won in 5 games with an MOV of 3.2 PPG.

Round 3 they won in 6 games with an MOV of 6.5 PPG.

I'd consider both Phoenix and Utah to be good teams but not really title contenders. Portland was definitely the cream of the crop out West though with an elite Top 7, including Ainge/Cliff off the bench.

In Round 1, they did face a putrid Lakers team, but had a +14.8 average MOV. Not much can be said about a series against a team that wasn’t good, but a +14.8 average MOV is certainly at least consistent with the Blazers being a great team. In Round 2, the Blazers had a +3.2 average MOV against a team with a regular season 5.68 SRS (the 4th highest SRS in the league that season), which is also quite consistent with the Blazers being a great team. Next, in Round 3, they had a +6.5 average MOV against a team with a 5.70 SRS (which was the 3rd highest SRS in the NBA that season—behind only the Bulls and Blazers). That’s great too. Overall, that’s like a 11.52 SRS in the first three rounds of the playoffs—including fairly easily beating the 3rd and 4th highest SRS teams in the league. And that’s after having a 6.94 SRS in the regular season. The 1992 Blazers were a genuinely really good team.

I would be using Portland SRS as a standard/baseline and not 0 when comparing Portland's MOV to different teams in the post-season, just as I would any post-season team.

[Owly]

Did they?

In round 1 they faced a putrid Lakers team (Missing James Worthy).

Round 2 they won in 5 games with an MOV of 3.2 PPG.

Round 3 they won in 6 games with an MOV of 6.5 PPG.

I'd consider both Phoenix and Utah to be good teams but not really title contenders. Portland was definitely the cream of the crop out West though with an elite Top 7, including Ainge/Cliff off the bench.

In Round 1, they did face a putrid Lakers team, but had a +14.8 average MOV. Not much can be said about a series against a team that wasn’t good, but a +14.8 average MOV is certainly at least consistent with the Blazers being a great team. In Round 2, the Blazers had a +3.2 average MOV against a team with a regular season 5.68 SRS (the 4th highest SRS in the league that season), which is also quite consistent with the Blazers being a great team. Next, in Round 3, they had a +6.5 average MOV against a team with a 5.70 SRS (which was the 3rd highest SRS in the NBA that season—behind only the Bulls and Blazers). That’s great too. Overall, that’s like a 11.52 SRS in the first three rounds of the playoffs—including fairly easily beating the 3rd and 4th highest SRS teams in the league. And that’s after having a 6.94 SRS in the regular season. The 1992 Blazers were a genuinely really good team.

I would be using Portland SRS as a standard/baseline and not 0 when comparing Portland's MOV to different teams in the post-season, just as I would any post-season team.

That would make sense if you were trying to compare if they overachieved/performed or underachieved/performed versus RS based expectations.

But the initial claim that you disputed was " They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way."

For an equivalent of a 10 SRS, there's probably some wiggle room and opponents won't always play at RS strength over a small sample (and sometimes, when trusting the playoffs heavily for rating one team, then trusting the RS entirely for a baseline for another doesn't seem fair - but as a first glance tool here that isn't saying playoffs is all, which I don't think anyone has here...), but requiring opponent SRS and your per game margin to sum 10 makes some intuitive sense, I think, at least without a deep dive.

Now it was said "in every round" not across all rounds cumulatively so using LessThanJake's numbers one could quibble with round 2. And maybe you say "several" is a woolly choice to hide a more specific and accurate "two" good teams.

[IG2]

Knicks took them to 7 games when most were expecting 4-0 or 4-1. That's what stands out. You expect the conference finals and finals to be competitive. Not a 2nd round series against a team that won 16 less games. Given the physical nature of that series too and how it went longer than expected, I think it took a lot out of Chicago. Tired them out for the next 2 series'.

From an advanced stats standpoint it's also at the lower end of MJ's 6 playoff runs that ended in a championship. I've watched each game of that run numerous times and thought MJ looked really tired at various points. Although I'd still take '92 MJ over any of those 6 versions besides 1991.

[homecourtloss]

Knicks took them to 7 games when most were expecting 4-0 or 4-1. That's what stands out. You'd expect the conference finals and finals to be competitive. Not a 2nd round series against a team that won 16 less games. Given the physical nature of that series and how it went longer than expected, I think it took a lot out of Chicago too.

From an advanced stats standpoint it's also at the lower end of MJ's 6 playoff runs that ended in a championship. I've watched each game of that run numerous times and thought MJ looked really tired at various points. Although I'd still take '92 MJ over any of those 6 versions besides 1991.

Knicks’ baseline floor game was pretty good, but they didn’t have a high ceiling unless Ewing and a few others were consistently making 18 foot jumpers. The Bulls won critical close games in Game 3 and Game 5 with some nice juicy FT numbers.

As for the Blazers, they were a good team that could have been much better without a meh center who couldn’t rebound and was slow as molasses. Then again, the Bulls with a high energy center who was a good defender/rebounder would be that much better. As it is, the Blazers should have taken it to 7 games (up 15 headed to the 4th, Jordan on bench and Bulls make a 10 point comeback). Once thy choke a little on that lead, they got zero calls the rest of the way.

In any case, it puts it all into perspective about narratives, e.g., “6-0!” etc., because you could have had a monster team in this era (much better than the 1992 Knicks or even the 1992 Blazers) and things would be much different.

[Owly]

Knicks took them to 7 games when most were expecting 4-0 or 4-1. That's what stands out. You'd expect the conference finals and finals to be competitive. Not a 2nd round series against a team that won 16 less games. Given the physical nature of that series and how it went longer than expected, I think it took a lot out of Chicago too.

From an advanced stats standpoint it's also at the lower end of MJ's 6 playoff runs that ended in a championship. I've watched each game of that run numerous times and thought MJ looked really tired at various points. Although I'd still take '92 MJ over any of those 6 versions besides 1991.

Knicks’ baseline floor game was pretty good, but they didn’t have a high ceiling unless Ewing and a few others were consistently making 18 foot jumpers. The Bulls won critical close games in Game 3 and Game 5 with some nice juicy FT numbers.

As for the Blazers, they were a good team that could have been much better without a meh center who couldn’t rebound and was slow as molasses. Then again, the Bulls with a high energy center who was a good defender/rebounder would be that much better. As it is, the Blazers should have taken it to 7 games (up 15 headed to the 4th, Jordan on bench and Bulls make a 10 point comeback). Once thy choke a little on that lead, they got zero calls the rest of the way.

In any case, it puts it all into perspective about narratives, e.g., “6-0!” etc., because you could have had a monster team in this era (much better than the 1992 Knicks or even the 1992 Blazers) and things would be much different.

Duckworth passed at only 44 which is no age to go and that's more important than how good he was at basketball ... but ...

Honestly "meh" is probably generous. Even just in Portland (his strongest spell) his career PER is 12.7, WS/48 is .084 (probably inflated by being on a good team) and BPM is -3.3. All whilst being regarded as poor (or worse) defender and a weak intangibles guy. And whether or not one thinks such things are noise those numbers get worse in the playoffs (full playoff career is in Portland so these numbers are for both) 9.1, .008, -4.0. '92 represents his 2nd most productive playoff run and the numbers there are 10.5, .042 and -2.0.

In light of:
-minutes played
-primacy given
-production
-reputation in non-box areas
-how he fell off in the playoff
-(with or without factoring in alternatives ... not great for pure centers but young Cliff played some C, maybe you could shunt Kersey and Buck up a position and go small, throw Ainge out there more ...)

he does seem like a contender for the player most harmful to a good team (without going the Spurs Rodman route, which opens a different discussion).

[lessthanjake]

Did they?

In round 1 they faced a putrid Lakers team (Missing James Worthy).

Round 2 they won in 5 games with an MOV of 3.2 PPG.

Round 3 they won in 6 games with an MOV of 6.5 PPG.

I'd consider both Phoenix and Utah to be good teams but not really title contenders. Portland was definitely the cream of the crop out West though with an elite Top 7, including Ainge/Cliff off the bench.

In Round 1, they did face a putrid Lakers team, but had a +14.8 average MOV. Not much can be said about a series against a team that wasn’t good, but a +14.8 average MOV is certainly at least consistent with the Blazers being a great team. In Round 2, the Blazers had a +3.2 average MOV against a team with a regular season 5.68 SRS (the 4th highest SRS in the league that season), which is also quite consistent with the Blazers being a great team. Next, in Round 3, they had a +6.5 average MOV against a team with a 5.70 SRS (which was the 3rd highest SRS in the NBA that season—behind only the Bulls and Blazers). That’s great too. Overall, that’s like a 11.52 SRS in the first three rounds of the playoffs—including fairly easily beating the 3rd and 4th highest SRS teams in the league. And that’s after having a 6.94 SRS in the regular season. The 1992 Blazers were a genuinely really good team.

I would be using Portland SRS as a standard/baseline and not 0 when comparing Portland's MOV to different teams in the post-season, just as I would any post-season team.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean here. The Blazers had a 11.52 SRS overall in the playoffs before the Finals, which is indicative of them having been very strong in the playoffs before facing the Bulls. If you want to use the Blazers’s regular season SRS as the baseline, then what you’re looking to measure is not really whether the Blazers were very strong in the playoffs, but rather whether they were looking in good form compared to their own already-great norm. But even then the answer would seem to be that they were in good form even relative to themselves, because their playoff SRS before facing the Bulls was like 4.58 higher than their regular season SRS.

It seems pretty clear to me that the Blazers were a really good team that was in good form in the playoffs. That just goes to the point that beating them in six games wasn’t an underperformance—which I don’t think is all that controversial since I don’t really see anyone here arguing otherwise. It’s really the second round and the ECF where the Bulls underperformed a bit. They lost 5 games in those two rounds combined, and I think it’s easy to imagine them getting through those rounds with only 2 or 3 losses.

[homecourtloss]

Knicks took them to 7 games when most were expecting 4-0 or 4-1. That's what stands out. You'd expect the conference finals and finals to be competitive. Not a 2nd round series against a team that won 16 less games. Given the physical nature of that series and how it went longer than expected, I think it took a lot out of Chicago too.

From an advanced stats standpoint it's also at the lower end of MJ's 6 playoff runs that ended in a championship. I've watched each game of that run numerous times and thought MJ looked really tired at various points. Although I'd still take '92 MJ over any of those 6 versions besides 1991.

Knicks’ baseline floor game was pretty good, but they didn’t have a high ceiling unless Ewing and a few others were consistently making 18 foot jumpers. The Bulls won critical close games in Game 3 and Game 5 with some nice juicy FT numbers.

As for the Blazers, they were a good team that could have been much better without a meh center who couldn’t rebound and was slow as molasses. Then again, the Bulls with a high energy center who was a good defender/rebounder would be that much better. As it is, the Blazers should have taken it to 7 games (up 15 headed to the 4th, Jordan on bench and Bulls make a 10 point comeback). Once thy choke a little on that lead, they got zero calls the rest of the way.

In any case, it puts it all into perspective about narratives, e.g., “6-0!” etc., because you could have had a monster team in this era (much better than the 1992 Knicks or even the 1992 Blazers) and things would be much different.

Duckworth passed at only 44 which is no age to go and that's more important than how good he was at basketball ... but ...

Honestly "meh" is probably generous. Even just in Portland (his strongest spell) his career PER is 12.7, WS/48 is .084 (probably inflated by being on a good team) and BPM is -3.3. All whilst being regarded as poor (or worse) defender and a weak intangibles guy. And whether or not one thinks such things are noise those numbers get worse in the playoffs (full playoff career is in Portland so these numbers are for both) 9.1, .008, -4.0. '92 represents his 2nd most productive playoff run and the numbers there are 10.5, .042 and -2.0.

In light of:
-minutes played
-primacy given
-production
-reputation in non-box areas
-how he fell off in the playoff
-(with or without factoring in alternatives ... not great for pure centers but young Cliff played some C, maybe you could shunt Kersey and Buck up a position and go small, throw Ainge out there more ...)

he does seem like a contender for the player most harmful to a good team (without going the Spurs Rodman route, which opens a different discussion).

He was probably one of the worst All-Stars they have ever been, but people looked at the game differently back then. I remember people talking about the fact that he could provide that little janky 10 foot shotput shot from the baseline. Obviously, with modern analytics, they would run their offense differently and get a lot more shots for Terry Porter, but this is what there was back then.

[IG2]

Knicks’ baseline floor game was pretty good, but they didn’t have a high ceiling unless Ewing and a few others were consistently making 18 foot jumpers. The Bulls won critical close games in Game 3 and Game 5 with some nice juicy FT numbers.

Wild that NY was never able to give Ewing a competent #2 option until he had 1 foot in retirement. Something like that would never happen in the post-Decision NBA. Incredible as those Knicks teams were defensively, they were never going to win it all with freaking Starks as their #2. I think that's how Bulls always saw them too.

As for the Blazers, they were a good team that could have been much better without a meh center who couldn’t rebound and was slow as molasses. Then again, the Bulls with a high energy center who was a good defender/rebounder would be that much better. As it is, the Blazers should have taken it to 7 games (up 15 headed to the 4th, Jordan on bench and Bulls make a 10 point comeback). Once thy choke a little on that lead, they got zero calls the rest of the way.

lol wouldn't be the 90's without slow, plodding centers that gave little on either end. Cartwright for the Bulls was an eye sore by 1992. As far as that series goes, I thought Blazers were fortunate it even went to 6 games. Bulls had an even worse choke job in Game 2 by blowing a double digit in the last 5 minutes. They blew another lead late in Game 4. Blazers were good, but honestly, that should've been a sweep.

[tone wone]

Knicks’ baseline floor game was pretty good, but they didn’t have a high ceiling unless Ewing and a few others were consistently making 18 foot jumpers. The Bulls won critical close games in Game 3 and Game 5 with some nice juicy FT numbers.

Wild that NY was never able to give Ewing a competent #2 option until he had 1 foot in retirement. Something like that would never happen in the post-Decision NBA. Incredible as those Knicks teams were defensively, they were never going to win it all with freaking Starks as their #2. I think that's how Bulls always saw them too.

As for the Blazers, they were a good team that could have been much better without a meh center who couldn’t rebound and was slow as molasses. Then again, the Bulls with a high energy center who was a good defender/rebounder would be that much better. As it is, the Blazers should have taken it to 7 games (up 15 headed to the 4th, Jordan on bench and Bulls make a 10 point comeback). Once thy choke a little on that lead, they got zero calls the rest of the way.

lol wouldn't be the 90's without slow, plodding centers that gave little on either end. Cartwright for the Bulls was an eye sore by 1992. As far as that series goes, I thought Blazers were fortunate it even went to 6 games. Bulls had an even worse choke job in Game 2 by blowing a double digit in the last 5 minutes. They blew another lead late in Game 4. Blazers were good, but honestly, that should've been a sweep.

I've always wondered how a series between CHI-POR in '91 would've gone. They were the 2 best teams in the league that year. Every team has a life cycle and given how much Drexler falls off in 1993 you could argue they were past their apex in 1992.