The Bulls went small and played huge

Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports Last night saw a big bounce-back game for the Bulls defense, as they followed up a nearly-worst-of-the-season 119 defensive rating versus the Warriors with their best non-Detroit performance putting up a 91.9 against the Clippers.

Granted, the Clippers are a much worse offensive team than Golden State, and were on the second half of a back-to-back. But being on this road trip without 2 high-minute frontcourt players in Nikola Vucevic and Patrick Williams and seeing defensive slippage stop at a single game deserves a ton of credit.

And it is even more remarkable given how the Bulls rotation backfilled for these big-man absences. Billy Donovan had Tony Bradley in…