Bulls coach Billy Donovan isn’t asking his players to rekindle 1980s Duke-style basketball and start slapping their hands on hardwood as a symbol of defensive intensity.
He isn’t even asking them to sacrifice some of the offensive gains made last season for the sake of improving defensively.
No, his message about 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. The Bulls were near the bottom in generating turnovers, chasing down loose balls, deflections and taking charges.
How do you call your team soft without calling it soft?
When Donovan and executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas sat down after the season ended last April, the discussion about improving the team focused on an obvious flaw.
“We have to get more defensive-minded,” Karnisovas said. “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 Cavalier Isaac Okoro in the Lonzo Ball trade was so important. Okoro welcomes physical play with open arms.
But Karnisovas realizes it’s not 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. We were one of the last-place teams in terms of creating turnovers, so defense is the focus.”
And the players are paying attention.
Forward Matas Buzelis is the closest thing the Bulls have to a rim protector, and he’s buying into the idea of becoming a two-way standout.
“Can I be more physical? Absolutely,’’ Buzelis said. ‘‘Can I be better? Absolutely. [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.”
From Buzelis to reserves Dalen Terry and Tre Jones, the talk leading into the preseason opener Tuesday in Cleveland has been about establishing a defensive identity right from the start.
“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 to force turnovers. But when you look at where turnovers come, a lot of times they come off deflections, being active with your hands. We were 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 to flip the numbers. There are things physically inside of our team that I think everyone is capable of doing.”
