Veteran DeMar DeRozan knows it's 'do-or-die' time for Bulls

ORLANDO, Fla. — Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan has experienced it many times throughout his career, and it isn’t pleasant.

It’s the feeling of falling short — not because everyone didn’t give their best as much as because their best didn’t show up.

In DeRozan’s case, he takes that into the offseason, and it leads to a lot of sleepless nights. It stays with him like a bad cough. He doesn’t want that for the Bulls — let alone for himself — yet again.

That’s his concern after the Bulls’ latest loss Sunday: The team can’t seem to flip the switch when most needed.

‘‘We’re coming to a point where we can’t play those [down] games, and we’ve got to have that mentality,’’ DeRozan said. ‘‘We can’t switch it on. It’s do-or-die.’’

Unfortunately for the Bulls, it has been do and then die far too often.

Lose an embarrassing game to the Wizards, only to come back and beat the Pacers. Earn a huge victory against the Timberwolves in Minnesota, then do a no-show against the Hawks. Handle the playoff-bound Knicks and follow that up with a 21-turnover loss Sunday to the Magic.

No wonder guard Jevon Carter labeled the Bulls the ultimate ‘‘wild-card team’’ heading into the play-in portion of the postseason.

‘‘The thing we need to see is like [we played against] New York, even Minnesota . . . we’ve played against physical teams,’’ coach Billy Donovan said when asked about the Bulls’ inconsistency from game to game. ‘‘That’s what was disappointing [against the Magic]. New York is physical, Minnesota is physical, this [Magic team]. Minnesota is long. I wouldn’t say New York is long without [injured] Julius Randle, but they are a physical team with the guys they have.

‘‘It’s just the — I don’t want to say attention to detail — it’s just the consistency of concentrating and focusing. Just because something happened two nights ago doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again.’’

The good news, as far as Donovan is concerned, is that this final week of the regular season should get the Bulls battle-tested for the first-round play-in game against the Hawks, whether it ends up being at the United Center or in Atlanta.

On Tuesday, the Bulls will host former coach Tom Thibodeau and the Knicks. On Thursday, they will visit a Pistons team that has beaten them twice this season. On Friday, they will visit a Wizards team that beat them the last time they played. Then in the season finale Sunday, it will be a road game against the Knicks, who likely will be playing for something.

What Donovan wants to see in the final four games is simple.

‘‘I don’t want to keep using the word ‘consistency,’ but we’ve got to be able to fundamentally not beat ourselves,” Donovan said. ‘‘I felt like we beat ourselves [Sunday], and I’m not taking any credit away from Orlando. They deserved to win the game. . . . But there were certainly a lot of things that we impacted and affected in the game, personally.’’

What DeRozan wants to see is a group that understands the moment and, win or lose, finishes with no regrets.

‘‘The pressure is going to be much different; what we have at stake is going to be much different,’’ DeRozan said. ‘‘The reality of it is, you don’t want the other side of it. We can’t have these Jekyll-and-Hyde games. We’ve got to try and find some consistency within these last couple of games. We’ve just got to.’’