CLEVELAND — After Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu put together a career-best 29 points in Atlanta on Monday night, his teammates and coaches warned him that for a young player looking for consistency, the follow-up game is always the important one.
Dosunmu by no means had a bad night in a 108-105 loss to the Cavaliers on Wednesday — 12 points is still 12 points — but he only scored three points in crunch time as the Bulls squandered a fourth-quarter lead, and he accounted for three of their 15 turnovers.
A dent in a solid bounce-back season for the former Morgan Park standout? Not at all.
But it was a reminder there’s still plenty of polishing to do. Good thing the Bulls have an avid worker.
“Can he put his fingerprints on the game? We talk to our young guys a lot about that stuff,” coach Billy Donovan said. “When you talk about elite players in the league, and I told DeMar [DeRozan] this [Wednesday], ‘Ayo had a career night [against the Hawks]. It was great, right?’ Well, DeMar had 29 points [in that game], too, and it’s almost like, ‘OK, normal day at the office, right?’ That’s because people have become accustomed that [DeRozan has] been pretty consistent throughout his career. I think that’s what these young guys have to fight for, where you play 10 games [and] OK, one or two, you play poorly, but the other eight, you play inside of a box, and you’re pretty consistent and responsible, reliable in those situations.”
That Dosunmu has been a recurring contributor as the Bulls enter the break with a chance to regroup for a playoff push is good news in itself. The 2021 second-round pick hasn’t made the jump that fellow guard Coby White has made, but he has shown flashes. In six games in February, he has averaged 15.7 points while shooting an eye-popping 55.9% on 5.7 attempts per game from three-point range. Not bad for a guy who shot 37.6% from three-point range as a rookie and 31.2% last season.
Working with shooting coach Peter Patton, the Bulls’ director of player development, has paid dividends for both White and Dosunmu.
“Coach P has been tremendous with me,” Dosunmu said. “He has done a great job of allowing me to understand my shot and find out what’s the best way I can be effective using my jump shot. And he’s very blunt with me. We have a relationship where he can coach me hard.”
The same can be said of Donovan. It’s no secret he’s tougher on younger players than veterans. He has been particularly hard on Dosunmu at times, maybe because he coached a player much like Dosunmu — and well known to Bulls fans — back in his days at Florida.
“Having Joakim Noah, if you told Jo, ‘That’s hot, it’s going to burn your hand,’ he’s going to touch it anyway because he’s going to learn through his own experiences,” Donovan said. “You tell [former Gator] Al Horford that, he’s not touching it. Ayo’s touching the pot.”
Donovan is OK with that as long as it keeps pushing Dosunmu to new heights.
“He’s got this stubbornness to him in a good way,” Donovan said. “I certainly never want to take that away from him, but there’s certain times when you do that [and] it puts you and your teammates in harm’s way. Those are the learning experiences.
“In my conversations with Ayo early, he wants it direct and he wants it at him, and I’m fine with that. I think he responds better to that.”
