An N.B.A. playoff team with a great defense and a building block star fired its polarizing coach and replaced him with a rookie coach who had been a sharpshooter in the 1990s. It was a recipe that worked so well for the Golden State Warriors that the Chicago Bulls went out and did virtually the same thing a year later.
Unfortunately, under Coach Fred Hoiberg, the Bulls have found that going from a good team to a great team can be a lot harder than the Warriors made it look.
Heading into back-to-back games against the Knicks, on Wednesday in Chicago and on Thursday in New York, the Bulls were clinging to the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race.