Okay, so flex like Alex may not have the same ring as be like Mike and number 6 is not in number 23’s tier. But after a number of seasons in the desert, there are many reasons to be excited about the Chicago Bulls’ start. Count Alex Caruso’s defense as one of those reasons. In this emblematic sequence from the Bulls’ win over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday, follow Caruso (black headband):
Caruso is on Jalen Brunson, but alert to the possibility of having to switch onto Luke Doncic when it appears that Doncic’s man, Lonzo Ball, may be trailing the play. With that fire out, Caruso is in good position to tag Dwight Powell’s roll, before reading Doncic’s pass intended for Brunson perfectly.
(Side bar: Credit Zach LaVine for his well timed stunt off the wing, which forces Doncic to pick up his dribble and gives Nikola Vucevic time to backpedal and deter the lob to Powell.)
In the clip above, Caruso finds himself in an unenviable position as the lone defender in a single-side tag situation. He needs to be in early enough to tag the roller, but still in position to recover out to his man. The margins are fine and playing the situation well requires reading the ball handler’s intentions, not easy when the ball handler in question is Luka Doncic. Caruso executes his responsibilities flawlessly and comes away with the steal.
About those steals: Caruso is leading the league with 2.6 steals per game (in just under 28 minutes per game). He hassles ball handlers all the way up the floor at times and seizes on anything sloppy or lackadaisical.
Caruso has a deep understanding of screens, both how to set them and how to navigate them. On the offensive end, he sets robust screens to spring teammates like Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan open. On the defensive side, he is quick to squeeze around picks and rarely gets screened out of the action. Watch him get around two Willie Cauley-Stein screens set here in rapid succession, before picking the passing lane and coming away with yet another steal:
That possession starts with Caruso switching onto the ball handler - he displays both the reflexes and the instincts to toggle between switching and sticking with his man.
I keep coming back to that word - instincts - when watching Caruso on defense. He nearly always seems to be in the right place, or doing the right thing. Here, he times his stunt perfectly, forcing Seth Curry to pick up his dribble. With nowhere to go and too much ground to cover to the rim, Curry coughs up a turnover.
I am a sucker for a good box out and Caruso puts in solid one here, but only after he has pulled in, at the ready to bring a double in case Andre Drummond spins right.
In general, Caruso’s teams have typically rebounded the ball better with him on the court than with him off per Cleaning the Glass, even though his own defensive rebounding numbers have been just okay. Good box outs will do that.
Caruso’s isn’t shy to use his defensive chops to quarterback the Bulls’ defense. That Derrick Jones Jr. is even in position to intercept the ball here owes some to Caruso pointing him towards the right spot on the floor.
The other thing to notice in that clip is how much in sync Caruso and Lonzo Ball are. As Ball goes over to tag Andre Drummond’s roll, Caruso matches him step for step to zone up between his man and Ball’s man in the weak side corner.
Ball and Caruso have combined to wreak havoc on defense. One out of every five opponent possessions ends in a turnover when Ball and Caruso are on the floor, in the 98th percentile of all lineups league-wide per CTG. Behind their lead, the Bulls are nearly a top five team in forcing opponent turnovers after being a bottom five team last season.
The Bulls’ defense in general is much improved, fifth in the league at 104 points allowed per 100 possessions per CTG. To say the defense has bucked pre-season prognostications is an understatement. There are reasons to think it will sustain; if anything, they are due for some regression in opponent three point shooting. That goes for Caruso too - the Bulls allow 6.6 points more per 100 with him on vs. off. A lot of that is owed to opponents shooting 18% better from three when he is on the floor, just the sort of random variation one might see in a 11 game sample. Most numbers and the eye test point to Caruso being an impact defender for the Bulls.
Count this site as jumping on the “Alex Caruso deserves All Defense consideration” train.