The Bulls and Atlanta Hawks Wednesday will play their version of Game 7, the NCAA tournament, the NFL playoffs, the delicious drama of the so called win-or-go-home scenario we love so much about sports. And so the All-Stars will get the attention, like the Bulls DeMar DeRozan with his pump fake celebration and Nikola Vučević with this drop step dance steps to the basket. And Atlanta’s Dejounte Murray with his powerful perimeter game and the popular Trae Young and his see-if-Steph-Curry-can-try-this arsenal.
But the reason the Bulls are favored to move onto Friday against either the Philadelphia 76ers or Miami Heat and a possible first round playoff series with the Boston Celtics is because they have the ultimate X-factor, the King of the Little Things, the 6-foot-5 lightbulb with the bright white head band about whom they once asked at Lakers Summer League, "Who gave the UPS guy a jersey?"
We’re familiar with Alex Caruso’s underdog story of not being drafted in 2016 out of Texas A&M, the one-time A&M ballboy — his parents both worked at the university — who they said was the worst ballboy ever because he’d take the balls after they were shot and instead of returning them to the players would be working on his dribbling or passing. So there were signs.
Caruso was a top SEC defensive player. But the NBA likes stats, and his eight-point scoring average wasn’t appealing. So then came a G League stint with Oklahoma City and then the Lakers, Caruso earning the NBA’s first two-way contract. Which still left him with one foot in the minors.
And a big heart for the majors to the point that without the scoring and the passing, without the size and the speed, Alex Caruso, nevertheless, has become one of the more decorated players in the NBA about to earn his second all-defensive team selection and perhaps a difference maker in Wednesday’s opening Bulls play-in game against the Hawks.
That’s because Caruso will be the bloodhound who gets the scent of Hawks All-Star Young, and in the two games Young played against the Bulls this season Caruso frustrated and thwarted Young into some of his poorest shooting games of the season and the Bulls won both games. Atlanta won April 1 when Young was recuperating from surgery.
“I would assume (I’d defend) Trae,” Caruso said following Bulls practice Tuesday. “But I probably will change throughout the game, too, based on minutes, how they match up. And if anyone gets going, my ego will probably take over and I’ll try to guard them.
“Just try to make it tough on (Young),” said Caruso. “He’s really good playing out of the pick and roll, lobs, spray out for threes. And if he gets going, he obviously has really deep range. So for him just try to limit free throws, limit floaters, limit the easy stuff; try to make him work for it.”
It’s what the 30-year-old Caruso does perhaps better than anyone on the NBA.
He won’t be Defensive Player of the Year because media voters prefer the metrics and almost always select a center, like this season’s favorite Rudy Gobert.
But if you have one possession to stop one player, you might select Caruso, who could be the Bulls most important player because of his effect on defense. He’s made a nice jump offensively this season, averaging in double figures for the first time in his career at 10.1. He also led the Bulls in three-point shooting at 41%. More significantly, despite looking like Andre Drummond eats more than that for breakfast, the maybe 185-pound Caruso led the Bulls in both steals and blocks.
Though perhaps what’s most impressive about the way Caruso plays is the relentlessness, tenacity and anticipation.
In an era when most teams are satisfied to switch screens in a zone concept that is supposed to — but doesn’t — eliminate pick and roll efficiency, hardly anyone forces themselves over the screen to stay with the player he is guarding. Among the many hustle board/little things which aren’t quantified, Caruso perhaps forces more offensive fouls than anyone the way screeners flinch or move so Caruso doesn’t wreck the screen.
Since the Bulls are a team often at a deficit in three-point shots, thus suffering in the math that two doesn’t work as well against three, the extra possessions are vital for the Bulls to compete. Caruso produces more of those than most players in the league. The Bulls defensive rating is three points better when Caruso plays, he’s among the team leaders in plus-minus and first among the starters, and he’s second among NBA guards in defensive field goal percentage. He’s a league leader in all that arcane stuff the coaches love like loose balls recovered and deflections. It’s uncanny how many times the Bulls commit a turnover and he has the ball back before the opponent can take three dribbles, how many times he blows up the play by denying the ball to the first option player, how many times he knows the opponent’s play and is cross court to trap or double, and then with the shot clock expiring there’s a forced shot, the make-it-difficult-on-them stuff everyone talks about but few do.
“Just trying to take away their strengths,” Caruso said about the Hawks. “They are really good in pick and roll. Murray and Trae Young do a lot of that and they’ve got supplemental shooting around then. (Bogdan) Bogdanovic is one of the best shooters in the league, top five, 10% based on volume and percentage; they are just dangerous. They’ve got three guards who can go off and get 30 and they have great bigs who rebound, wings that rebound, play off the dribble; they just get easy baskets. So I think just take away their strengths in pick and roll, offensive rebounding, three-point shooting are probably the key.”
Despite not being drafted, despite three years in the G League or on two-way contracts, despite not much known for his offense or shooting or passing or rebounding or, you know, all the stuff the NBA is about, just how do you become not only an NBA starter who started the Game 6 clinching title game for the Lakers championship in 2020 — coach Frank Vogel called him their Mariano Rivera for Caruso’s fourth quarter effect on a team with LeBron James and Anthony Davis — but perhaps the player the Bulls will most need to ride to continue in the play-in tournament?
Though perhaps more than that, I always wonder because as good as they are, the majority of NBA players are not stars. There are Carusos all over the G League, Europe and even the playgrounds of the world. You have to wonder why they aren’t doing what he does. After all, you don’t have to have the skills of LeBron, KD, Giannis and the rest.
“Different way of eating,” Caruso said with a shrug after practice. “I had to work to get here. There are certain things that if I were seven-foot and could shoot threes and turnarounds and play off the dribble and score 30 a night for 15 years, I would do that and I probably wouldn’t be as good at defense.”
Spoiler alert: I doubt that.
“Probably that’s just the reality of it,” said Caruso. “For me, it was a different path, different way for me to figure out how to get in the league. To get on the court in the beginning I had to guard. I had to use my four to eight minutes a night and turn that into 10 to 12, and turn that into 20 and turn that into having a couple of real good years here in Chicago. I think for me it’s just about the path and facing the reality of what I was good at. Obviously, I’ve worked to become somewhat of a threat on the offensive end. But the defensive end is where I’ve kind of had to find my niche to get into the league.”
There are so many great stories in the NBA. But Caruso’s — and I always have to offer the no offense admonition — may be the most remarkable given his value in the league from the path he has taken with the physical abilities and untraditional NBA skillset that he has.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan regarding Caruso had an interesting theory and something of an indictment of the process for players these days in what we can lovingly call an old school observation.
“It’s changed so much,” said Donovan. “Again (disclaimer alert!), I’m not trying to be like one of these guys that’s, ‘Oh, it was so much better 40 years ago.’ I’m not trying to get into that. This is what ended up happening when I was growing up and I’m just going with my experience. You grow up in New York and you go to the park, there’s 50 guys out there playing and it’s five-on-five, and you know if you lose you’re going to sit down for an hour and a half, and you don’t want to lose. And sometimes you’re playing with older guys that tell you, ‘You better not shoot the ball. Just defend and do this.’ You want to play so you do things. So much of it now has gone away from kids going to the park and playing competitively. There’s some really good things with AAU, but one of the things I’ve always felt like — I remember as a kid it was always such a thrill to put a uniform on because you only did it once a week; elementary school, grammar school, growing up — these guys have AAU games, they play at 8 a.m. and lose, ‘OK, we’re going to play at 1.’ Sometimes (you lose) the importance of winning and what goes into winning, and what you have to do. As a kid (we) learned that. It’s just not granted that you’re going to play all day long; you may not. I think that’s missed.”
Which also encapsulates Caruso.
He mostly does the things that help you win the game.
Of course, the Bulls don’t win as many as they do without DeRozan’s scoring and clutch performances, Vučević's effect, the presence of players like Ayo Dosunmu, who is hoping to play Wednesday with his quad injury, and Andre Drummond, who is less likely after an ankle sprain last week.
But the Bulls also aren’t here without Caruso, and if they are going somewhere he’s got to be one of the drivers.
“I think we are ready for the moment,” said Caruso. “There’s nothing that is too big for anybody on our team. We’ve played in big games throughout the year against good teams. A lot of these guys were on the team last year who played in the play-in; we’re ready for the moment. It’s just about showing up and playing.”
And who knows better about doing that than Alex Caruso?
“I don’t have enough talent to just carry me,” Caruso admits. “I have to play with effort, I have to play with detail and a competitive spirit that’s better than everybody else to become an elite defender or play in meaningful games and have impact; so this is work. I’m chasing more, I’m chasing self improvement. So if they want to take the night off they can, but I’m going to show up and play hard.”
You wouldn’t expect anything else.
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