CHICAGO – The last time the expectations were this high, two guys named Jordan and Pippen were hoarding championships as if it were their birthright.

Simply making the playoffs isn’t good enough anymore for the Chicago Bulls. Winning a series won’t cut it, either.

“Knowing where we went last year, I think we could do a lot better,” forward Luol Deng said.

The Bulls went to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since their golden era, and now, they want more. To get there, they’re relying more on improvement from within than any major roster additions. That’s because there weren’t any in the offseason.

Chicago barely made a ripple over the summer after causing a big wave a year earlier, when it signed Ben Wallace. Now, the Bulls are preaching the virtues of continuity.

“We went into the offseason knowing that it was going to be quiet, that we were going to try to keep our guys together and maintain some continuity,” coach Scott Skiles said. “We don’t make any secret about it: We like our core group of players that have been here and we’ll just try to add to it.”

That core group – Deng and guards Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich – has taken the Bulls from the bottom of the NBA to a contender for the Eastern Conference championship. They won 49 games, swept defending champion Miami after back-to-back first-round playoff exits, and put up a fight after dropping the first three games against Detroit in the conference semifinals. They won two before bowing out in Game 6.

It was a big step for a franchise that hadn’t won a series since capturing the title in 1998 and endured a painful rebuilding process.

“We’re definitely excited about where we’re at,” Hinrich said.

Taking that next step won’t be easy. The Bulls may be better, but the East is, too.

LeBron James and defending conference champion Cleveland aren’t going away, and the same probably goes for Detroit. Like the Bulls, Toronto figures to be a year older and better. Miami, New Jersey and Washington should be in the mix, and then there are New York and Boston.

The Knicks could be dangerous if newcomer Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry coexist, and the Celtics finally have someone to complement Paul Pierce – Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.