It’s not a concern that is keeping Billy Donovan up at night.
No, that would infer that it is somehow looming.
Make no mistake about it, it’s here for the Bulls and their coach, and it has been for weeks. An in-the-face realization that the league has the blueprint on how to exploit this flawed roster, and it won’t stop until players start digging their toes into the mud and insisting, “Enough is enough!”
Who knows which opposing team gets the credit. Maybe it was the fourth quarter in Portland when the Trail Blazers used their size and physicality to erase a 21-point deficit, outrebounded the Bulls 18-6 in that final stanza, and forced the Bulls into a Nikola Vucevic game-winner at the buzzer to escape.
Or maybe it was Miami and X and O wizard Erik Spoelstra, who has owned the Bulls for years, including a humiliating 143-107 throttling a few weeks ago.
Either way, since that fourth-quarter nightmare in the Great Northwest, the Bulls have been outrebounded 271-221, including a 72-49 discrepancy on the offensive glass. That’s a bad lifestyle choice to make in the NBA.
Add in teams going big, ball-handlers attacking Donovan’s guards, and easy baskets by the opposition neutralizing the up-tempo transition game the Bulls want to play, and a team that was once the surprise of the Association with a 5-0 start to the season is 3-5 in their last eight to fall to 9-10, including losses to division dwellers like New Orleans, Charlotte and Indiana on Saturday.
“If you look at it, every time a game is played there is film out there on us,” Donovan said. “And on everyone, coaches, players. And you get out to a 5-0 start, people start to watch, start to see things, and you try and start to exploit things.”
The opposition has done more than start to exploit those weaknesses. They have. The one saving grace that Donovan and his staff are hanging onto? Their best defensive player in Isaac Okoro was sidelined the last four games with a back issue, and physical back-up center Zach Collins (left wrist surgery) could be making his regular-season debut in the next week.
Help is coming.
Even so, Donovan warned his players that adding Okoro and Collins doesn’t mean the issues will suddenly disappear. There has to be more resistance, especially in the backcourt.
“At some point individually, you’ve got to shut the water off,” Donovan said. “There’s going to be times where you can’t bring help all the time. When teams see things, ‘Drive right through them, pound the offensive glass, make them play in space, make them guard the ball.’ And we’re going to have to do that better than we are.”
Responsibility that falls directly on guards Coby White, Josh Giddey, Tre Jones, Ayo Dosunmu and Kevin Huerter.
That was on display in the final minutes against the Pacers when Pascal Siakam would work the switch onto Giddey, leading to the backdown in the post and the easy basket. Siakam is listed at 6-foot-8, while Giddey is 6-7. We’re not talking huge disadvantage there.
At some point there has to be a good old-fashioned street fight. Or as Donovan put it, a decision to face the waves and reach the raft.
“The life raft is out there, we know what it is, the bottom line is we’ve got to participate in our own rescue and swim to it,” Donovan said. “The film that’s out, you try to exploit the opposing team’s weaknesses. We try to do the same thing. The more film, the more games people can look at, ‘Hey, what does Chicago look like in their wins? What do they look like in their losses? What do they do well? What don’t they do well?’ More and more games, more and more numbers to determine how you’re going to game plan for us.”