DALLAS — The Bulls’ offense is going to come around. Veteran forward DeMar DeRozan has to keep telling himself that — and everyone else in the locker room — so frustration doesn’t turn to panic.
Because through the first five games of the season, it couldn’t get much worse.
After the Bulls’ 114-105 loss to the Mavericks on Wednesday, only five teams were averaging less than their 105.4 points per game, only two were shooting worse than the Bulls’ 42.6% from the field and 30.2% from three-point range, and the Bulls remained bottom-five in three-point attempts with 31.8 per game.
Starting forward Patrick Williams is still putting up stat lines with a zero in them — two in his last three games — and scoring from the bench remains sporadic.
So, yeah, it has to get better.
“Everybody wants to make shots for sure right now, everybody wants the best, but it’s going to come,’’ DeRozan promised. “I would rather start off this way than start off hot and you realize that at some point you’ve got to cool down. [The shots] haven’t fallen, but when they do fall, your confidence is going to be higher because you fought through the rough patch.”
In the meantime, as the Bulls continue macheteing their way through, they might have stumbled onto something sustainable from night to night. Defense has been their calling card the last few seasons, but against Mavericks all-everything guard Luka Doncic, they also went into a heavy trap game to get the ball out of Doncic’s hands, force turnovers and frustrate him.
Guard Alex Caruso believes that game plan could be useful against more opponents than Doncic.
“This is the first time we’ve thrown some type of trap scheme, putting two on the ball on good players to start the year, so obviously we can get better from it,” Caruso said. “We can grow from it.
“That’s kind of what you have to do with great players, and [Doncic’s] all of that in one. I thought, for the most part, we kept him off rhythm [and] didn’t foul him too much and get him going to the free-throw line.”
Considering Doncic came in averaging just under 40 points per game for the undefeated Mavericks, it’s safe to say the Bulls had a successful showing in holding him to just 18.
The other takeaway was it wasn’t just Caruso thrown at Doncic. Williams was on him to start the game. Then Caruso and guard Coby White got a few chances, as well as forward Torrey Craig, all maintaining a physical mentality against him.
“We’ve got it, and you see it,” DeRozan said of the number of defensive-minded players the Bulls have this season. “We’ve got Pat, T-Craig, AC. . . . We’ve got a couple guys that can guard one through four, shut down defenders, and that’s big to have on your team.”
For a team struggling like the Bulls are, it’s more than just big — it’s a life preserver to cling to until the offense does start turning it around.
“We return a lot of the same team from last year, and everyone knows we had a really good defensive year in the second half, later part of the year, so [we’re] just trying to grow off that momentum,” Caruso said. “We picked up [guard] Jevon [Carter] and T-Craig, and everyone knows [center Andre Drummond’s] reputation of blocks, getting steals, and [guard] Ayo (Dosunmu) is waiting in the wings, too. So we’ve got a lot bodies we can throw at you, give different looks and keep fresh legs on you.”
