Bulls wing Dalen Terry's shot still under construction

The numbers don’t show it, and at times neither does the eye test, but Bulls guard/forward Dalen Terry is making progress with his outside shooting.

It beats missing left or right.

That’s where the Arizona product was last season, fundamentally broken with a guide hand too far on the side of the ball. The result was 25.9% three-point shooting, with some ugly misses.

“The biggest thing we’ve tried to work with him on was the consistency of where it’s not missing left, it’s not missing right, where there’s at least, ‘Is it long? Is it short?’ ” coach Billy Donovan said. “Those things are more correctable. When you start missing left or right, generally that’s a mechanical issue. That’s where the focus has been on him.”

The work started right after Terry’s rookie season ended, helped by the addition of shooting coach Peter Patton in the summer.

There still have been some unflattering moments. And Terry entered Monday night’s game against the Wizards still struggling from three-point range, with an even worse percentage than last season (24.1%). That wasn’t unexpected.

“When these guys get to be 19, 20 years old, it’s really hard to do, like, a total shot reconstruction because now what happens is a guy is completely unfamiliar with his shot,” Donovan said. “You try to make tweaks.”

It helps that Terry is open to it.

“I definitely believe it’s going to be a real big offseason for me, just taking care of my shot,” he said. “I think I’ve made some real big steps just in this season, just working with Coach Patton. It’s really just a control thing. Like [Donovan] said, it was a left-right thing at first, and that’s a problem. Now that it’s a short-or-long thing, we can work with that. It’s just touch at that point. . . . Before, when it was left or right, that would kind of mess with my head.

“[Changing it] was tough at first, but it got to the point where I had to tell myself, ‘If I want to be as great as I think I can be, I know this is something I really need to do.’ ”

Slow news is good news?

Donovan had nothing fresh to report on the rehabilitation of guard Lonzo Ball’s left knee, other than to say he’s still sprinting and cutting with no setbacks. Getting him on the floor for actual full-contact basketball still seems a ways off.

“He goes in and gets his work done, and he’ll shut down,” Donovan said. “There’s no wasted calories, so to speak. He’s running and doing all those things, but in terms of him getting to play, I think that will be a slow process getting him back to. Not that he’s behind anyway — it’s more of just being cautious in terms of understanding that we’re moving into April, and the hope is that he’ll have August and September.”

Ball is expected in Chicago as early as next week to meet with the Bulls’ medical staff.