It isn’t like Billy Donovan is asking his players to start going all 1980s Duke basketball and take up the practice of slapping their hands on hardwood as a symbol of intensity on the defensive end.
The Bulls coach isn’t even asking them to forgo some of their offensive gains made last season and sacrifice that for improvement on the other end of the court.
No, his message concerning the defense all offseason has been a simple one: Just care more.
Donovan spent the first week of training camp throwing a lot of numbers out there when discussing his team away from the offensive end of the game. The Bulls were near the bottom in generating turnovers during the 2024-25 campaign, chasing down loose balls, deflections and taking charges.
How do you call your team soft without calling them soft?
When Donovan and executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas sat down right after the season ended last April, the discussion on improving the team was an obvious one.
“We have to get more defensive minded,” Karnisovas said of that conversation and this new-look roster. “The focus will be on establishing on-court toughness and physicality. The defensive emphasis will be on creating turnovers, taking charges, fighting through screens, picking up full court, trapping, protecting the rim, etc …”
That’s why the addition of former Cleveland Cavalier Isaac Okoro in the Lonzo Ball trade was so important.
Okoro is not only a player unafraid of the smoke in the physicality department but welcomes it with open arms.
Karnisovas, however, knows that it’s not just a one-man job.
“When you start talking about playing tough defensively, (Okoro) was the first one in our minds,” he said. “Other than that a lot of what we’re going to do defensively is that we’re going to have to do different things. Whether that be zone, whether that be trapping, because we were one of the last-place teams in terms of creating turnovers, so defense is the focus.”
And the players from last season’s team are paying attention.
Forward Matas Buzelis is the closest thing the Bulls have to a rim protector, and not only does he want to continue improving that aspect of his game but is buying into the whole idea of becoming a two-way standout.
“Can I be more physical? Absolutely. Can I be better? Absolutely,” Buzelis said of his defense. “(Physicality) has been the key word every day (in camp). I definitely need to be more physical. I think you’ll see it this year.
“I’m a player that can do a lot of things. I never limit myself on the court, but I think my defense will stick out this year.”
An opinion shared right down the line of the roster. From Buzelis to the likes of reserves such as Dalen Terry and Tre Jones, the talk leading into the preseason opener Tuesday in Cleveland has been about establishing a defensive identity and doing so right from the jump.
“The first thing you have to look at is teams took four more shots than we did per game (last season),” Donovan said. “When you start to break it down, we were 29th in the league in forcing turnovers. Now, that doesn’t mean you want to run around and gamble to try forcing turnovers, but when you look at where turnovers come, a lot of times it comes off deflections, active with your hands. We were 29th there, 28th in the league in offensive rebounding. We turned the ball over more than our opponents.
“There are controllable things that we need to focus on to try and flip the numbers. There are things physically inside of our team that I think everyone is capable of doing.”
