Bulls searching for some sort of return to their early season success

Never has a game against lowly Charlotte meant more in recent years.

But here the Bulls are, four days game-free this week before flying out to take on the Hornets on Friday, sending out the hounds and any other able bodies to join the search party and find some sort of life, a pulse on this dying season.

Practice, film work, heart-to-heart talks, the last 48 hours have seen it all since Golden State handed the Bulls a seventh straight loss on Sunday at the United Center, as it’s starting to reach the point where it will be enough talk, time for action.

After a 6-1 start to the 2025-26 campaign that has now turned into 3-13 since, something, anything, quick.

“I’m not really sure, but for some reason right now for us it’s not clicking at all,” veteran big man Nikola Vucevic offered up as best he could in the explanation department. “We’re struggling on both ends and just not playing to the level we know we can. I think for us (this week) couldn’t come at a better time to hopefully use it to regroup, get some good work in, and hopefully play better coming out of it.”

It would seem like facing the 7-17 Hornets would be just what the Donovan ordered. After all, Bulls coach Billy Donovan saw his squad come out of the gate beating the likes of Detroit, New York, Orlando and Philadelphia by early November, so there was a point in which this group worked.

But it was after that they started breaking, sinking so low that the opponent no longer seemed to matter.

In this streak of futility, they have lost to six-win Indiana twice, six-win Brooklyn, three-win New Orleans, and yes, the seven-win Hornets that man-handled them by seven points a few weeks ago.

Same old Charlotte? Not really, at least where the Bulls are concerned.

That’s why it feels like the toughest opponent Donovan & Co. are dealing with is themselves.

“It just feels like the game starts, we get down pretty quick, and then snowball effect, we can’t really find our way out of it,” Vucevic said. “At one point our defense wasn’t great, our offense was working, and now it’s neither working so we just have to figure it out. A lot of things we talk about, a lot of things we control and know we can do better. For whatever reason we’re not doing it together on the floor.”

The reasons why they’re not remains unknown.

Sure, there’s the obvious excuses of injuries, roster construction, game prep, lack of a true star, eight possible players in walk years, and even the schedule. Most of that falls on deaf ears, however, considering most of the NBA is dealing with the same issues and at least play with some energy.

Guard Josh Giddey simplified things. Want to play the blame game? Blame the players and the lack of execution.

“Game plan-wise, the coaches, Billy, whoever is doing the scouting, gives us great game plans,” Giddey said. “They give it to us and it’s up to us to go out there and execute them. We just haven’t done that at a high enough level to win games. We’ve got to figure out ways to counteract (what teams are doing). Game plan-wise we get everything we need.

“We’ve shown we can do it early on, and it’s about doing it at a high enough level night in and night out, whether we’ve got guys injured or not. Every team in the league deals with things like that, back-to-backs, whatever it is. We’ve just got to find a way to get back to it.”

Charlotte would be a good place to start.

At least it better be.