They faced the Milwaukee Bucks within the first round, and took benefit of the younger and inexperienced Bucks by going up a quick 3–zero in the collection. However, inconsistency and never being on the identical page but once more plagued the Bulls because the Bucks won the next two games, sending a scare to Chicago.
In the first round, the Bulls again faced Miami, the defending NBA champions. The Bulls narrowly gained Game 1 at house, then followed it with a blowout victory in Game 2. In Miami, the Bulls rallied from a 12-level second-half deficit to win Game three after which posted one other comeback win in Game 4. The Bulls' four-sport sweep of the defending champions surprised many NBA observers. It was Chicago's first playoff collection victory since 1998, Jordan's last season with the staff.
In that sport, the Bulls scored 49 points to set an NBA report for the fewest factors in a sport within the shot clock era. Derrick Rose was voted as an NBA All-Star starter for the second consecutive yr, and was the third main voted player general behind Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant. Luol Deng was additionally chosen as a reserve for the Eastern Conference.
After a summer season during which the Bulls witnessed most main and minor free agents Tim Duncan, Grant Hill, Tracy McGrady, Eddie Jones and even Tim Thomas select to stick with their teams (or go elsewhere) rather than sign with them, Krause signed free agent middle Brad Miller and shooting guard Ron Mercer, and drafted power forward Marcus Fizer and traded draft choose Chris Mihm to Cleveland for the rights of guard Jamal Crawford. Brand once more led the team in scoring and rebounds with one other 20–10 season, but the brand new acquisitions failed to make a serious impact, and so they finished with the worst document in team history and the league's worst for the season at 15–67. In 1989–90, Jordan led the league in scoring for the fourth straight season and was joined on the all-star squad for the primary time by Pippen. There was also a major change in the course of the off-season, where head coach Doug Collins was replaced by assistant coach Phil Jackson.
On July 10, 2017, Justin Holiday returned to the Bulls signing 2-year $9 million contract. On September 24, 2017, Dwyane Wade and the Bulls reportedly agreed to a buyout of the remaining 12 months on his contract.