Bulls’ defense remains an issue, and it’s one that needs to be addressed quickly

It’s proving not to be a quick fix.

Coach Billy Donovan saw the Bulls’ defense break down way too often last season. And with basically the same players returning this season, the bad defense reared its ugly head once again in the preseason opener Tuesday against the Pelicans.

Just a bad night at the office? You might be able to make an argument for that had there not been so many dismal nights last season.

That has to change, and it starts with the Bulls’ attitude on defense. If there was one troublesome takeaway from the game for Donovan, it was the Bulls’ lack of competitiveness defensively, especially at the point of attack on screens.

‘‘Our competitive spirit needs to be a lot better than it was, in my opinion,’’ Donovan said after watching the performance on film. ‘‘That was the part, for me, where you walk away from that and you’re disappointed because that’s not who we’ve been in training camp. That’s not the team I’ve seen out there every day for the first six days of training camp.

‘‘I’m not saying our guys have this mentality, but there could be a point of, ‘Hey, it’s preseason, let me ease my way into this, kind of get a rhythm.’ We can’t have that. You’ve got to establish an identity, or one is going to be established for you.’’

Few know that better than Donovan, who saw two very different identities from his team last season.

In the first half of last season, the Bulls were relatively healthy and their defense wreaked havoc in the opposing team’s backcourt. In the second half, the Bulls were more banged up and found themselves struggling defensively (and offensively) on too many nights.

That’s why the Bulls finished 22nd in the NBA in defensive rating, 16th in points allowed (112 per game) and 26th in opponents’ field-goal percentage.

If you don’t think that’s a big deal, know that the two best defensive teams in the league last season were the Warriors and Celtics, who played for the NBA title. And that the top of the Eastern Conference is loaded with teams that thrive on locking offenses down.

But there’s another layer to the Bulls’ defensive issues that’s equally concerning.

The Bulls are at their best offensively when they are pushing the action and in transition. The easiest way to do that is with steals or by forcing the opposition to miss shots. Made shots mean inbounding the ball and giving opposing defenses time to set up.

The Pelicans scored 40 points and shot 70% from the field in the first quarter Tuesday. That’s not going to get it done. It didn’t last season, and it won’t now.

And while guard Lonzo Ball — unquestionably the best defender among the Bulls’ starters, when healthy — was back in Chicago after undergoing surgery on his left knee last week in Los Angeles, he is still weeks away from even getting an evaluation, let alone returning to the court.

So what does that mean in the short term? It means veterans such as Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic have to take some more pride on the defensive end.

Like many teams did last season, the Pelicans exploited the Bulls’ pick-and-roll defense, which means it starts there.

‘‘We’re going to have to help each other a little bit more than we did,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘I didn’t think there was any presence on the ball, I didn’t think there was any presence at the rim. . . . There’s just some things that, competitively, we’ve just got to be better at.’’

NOTE: Guard Coby White was a full participant in practice after an MRI exam on his knee came back clean. He is expected to play in the preseason game Friday against the Nuggets.