Bulls
If the results tell us anything, it’s that voters were, on the whole, unable to distinguish between one brand of awful and the other.
The team announced Friday morning that LaVine would be sidelined at least another week with a sore right foot, but is that really a bad thing? There are growing signs that while the Bulls might not be better without the two-time All-Star guard, they definitely aren’t worse.
If change is on the horizon, it won’t always be like this. There will be lulls and growing pains throughout the season, but these young players brought an energy and spirit that had been missing.
Donovan said the team doesn’t specialize in one particular coverage; it has multiple defensive schemes it can run throughout a game. But with the Bulls sporting the 22nd-worst defense in the NBA, they need to find some answers.
Both broadcasters worked for the same owner and were in similar situations. Yet Benetti’s relationship with the Sox differed from Amin’s with the Bulls.
Losing is one thing, but doing so with little effort — especially on the defensive end — is unforgivable for a unit that had a top five defensive rating last season.
The season continued slipping away Tuesday — and in embarrassing fashion. The Celtics ran up the score on the Bulls in a 124-97 victory.
Meeting with the traveling media in Boston on Tuesday, Karnisovas acknowledged the struggles his roster is going through, insisting, “I’m not running from it. It’s my responsibility.’’
Nikola Vucevic said in October that the “Big Three” of himself, DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine needed to deliver early this season or there would be an or-else. We’ve reached or-else.
Thanks to giving up a franchise-record 25 threes on Sunday, the Bulls watched a 21-point first quarter lead quickly disintegrate at the hands of the Nets. It was the fourth straight loss and the seventh in the last eight games.
While Donovan never would come out and call his roster soft, he once again expressed his frustration with his players’ lack of consistent physicality throughout a game.
According to DeRozan, there’s more than enough in the current Bulls locker room to turn the sinking ship around, and that’s why he wants to give this group time to figure it out.
DeRozan was frustrated enough by his team’s poor play in Friday’s In-Season Tournament loss to the Raptors, but his frustration boiled over thanks to some last-second shots put up by his former team with the game well in hand.
Donovan is not asking Coby White to be Lonzo Ball as far as advancing the ball and pushing the team up the floor, but there are definitely little habits White can add that made Ball so effective.
Coming into the season, the Bulls were looking to change their shot profile, get to the free-throw line more and play fast. They’re putting up more threes — and missing many of them — but little has gone right. Could one of the “Big Three” be moved to the bench? If only it was that simple.
LaVine said he’s been dealing with what he described as a mid-foot sprain since the Bulls’ victory Saturday against the Heat.
After coaching the Thunder to a 243-157 record and five playoff appearances in five seasons, Donovan left when the team opted to rebuild. Less than four years later, the Thunder are reaping the rewards of general manager Sam Presti’s work and the Bulls are in the same place they were when Donovan was hired.
‘‘People have to make decisions however they see fit,’’ DeRozan said. ‘‘You may agree with them, you may not, but it’s part of being in this game.’’
Karnisovas has not missed one shot, thrown away one pass, or blown a single defensive assignment, but he is responsible for this sinking ship and needs to start repairing it.
They got away with it in Saturday’s come-from-behind win over the Heat, but they had no such luck Monday. The latest loss leaves the players and coaching staff searching for a solution.
Donovan usually has no problem with transparency, but he chose his words carefully when discussing the LaVine postgame incident from Saturday.
LaVine and his camp made it very clear earlier this week that they were all for being sent elsewhere in a trade, but that doesn’t mean the two-time All-Star has to go out of his way to become a villain in all of this. Saturday was a bad look for LaVine.
Coach Billy Donovan is trying to get his players to show up with an “Iron Mike” Tyson attitude from the opening tip, but he’s still seeing poor starts, and on Saturday, there was an angry finish from one player.
His golf game wasn’t the only thing he worked on in the offseason. Caruso, who’s starting, made it a point to improve his three-point shooting, and it shows.
Now that it has become a foregone conclusion that LaVine won’t finish the season — or the year or maybe the month — in a Bulls uniform, the time has come to look at the other side of the coin. The non-basketball side.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan rolled out a new starting lineup but saw another lethargic first half, leading to the question of whether the players tuned him out or quit on each other.
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