Ranking Bulls' Most Important Games of 2022-23 NBA Regular Season

The Chicago Bulls opened the 2022-23 NBA season in impressive fashion.

Despite being without Lonzo Ball and Zach LaVine, the Bulls downed the Miami Heat—last season's No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference—behind the latest gem from DeMar DeRozan, this one a 37-point, nine-assist masterpiece.

For a club that figures to scratch and claw for a playoff berth in an absolutely loaded conference, this was an important win to nab out of the gate. The games will increase in importance going forward, though, and we're here to spotlight the three most critical contests on the docket.

Between these recent injury issues and Chicago's inability to respond to similar absences last season, the Bulls aren't exactly regarded as elites.

ESPN's Zach Lowe placed Chicago in the "Grasping at Play-in Home-court Disadvantage" tier, meaning he has the Bulls fighting for the Nos. 9 or 10 seeds. And this was before LaVine vanished on opening night.

For the Bulls to force folks to change their perceptions, they need to reel off some signature victories. This would be a massive game to get. The Bucks are Central Division rivals, one of the top teams in the Association and steered by perhaps the best player on the planet, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Any win over Milwaukee would be huge, but this could have some added juice. This is the first stop on a season-long six-game road trip that also features trips to Phoenix and Golden State. The Bulls would greatly improve their chances of exceeding expectations by nabbing this victory and using it as fuel for a successful trek out West.

The Bulls survived their first trip to South Beach without their starting backcourt, but they have to know this is a team that could pester them all season.

Beyond being reliably well-coached and conditioned to keep the defensive pressure up, the Heat also happen to be a direct competitor for one of the conference's mid-level playoff seeds.

Any head-to-head clash will be a chance to start building a tiebreaker advantage over the other. This particular contest, however, looms larger than the others given the challenges of the schedule.

This falls amid a string of matchups with playoff-hopefuls. Two nights before the game, the Bulls will be in Minnesota. The night after it, they play in Atlanta against a Hawks team vying for the same postseason spots. The travel alone is tough, and the competition magnifies the difficulty.

Despite last season's second-half slide, the Bulls were fortunate enough to be one of the six Eastern Conference clubs to bypass the play-in tournament and snag a postseason invitation outright.

Repeating that feat will be tricky, as teams like the Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta Hawks and these very same Cavaliers all landed outside of the top six then but could be loaded up to crack it now.

Cleveland, a Central Division rival, might be the biggest threat to Chicago of the bunch. The Cavaliers already figured to be trending up given the developmental upside of Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. Then, the front office hit the fast-forward button and brokered a blockbuster trade for Donovan Mitchell, which cranked up expectations even higher.

The Cavaliers are, in a sense, coming directly for the Bulls' spot, which will make each head-to-head matchup feel important. This particular contest is their last meeting in the series, and for Chicago, it follows stops in Memphis and Brooklyn to close out a short-but-challenging three-game road trip.