This is the purpose within the NBA season when a group begins to outline itself.
DeMar DeRozan repeated that perception within the visiting locker room on the Golden 1 Center on Sunday after a 110-101 loss to the Sacramento Kings. The room was hushed round him, Chicago Bulls teammates shuffling in annoyed silence by their postgame routine.
There wasn’t a lot to say. After ending a West Coast highway swing on a three-game shedding streak, the Bulls (9-14) know they want to determine precisely who they’re, each as people and as a group. The query now could be who will lead that effort — on the court docket and off.
“A true competitor is going to pull through,” DeRozan mentioned after Sunday’s loss. “All these guys show frustration, show frustration — and that’s a great sign. Now we’ve just got to channel that in the right direction.”
The Bulls might need to endure additional excavation to search out the supply of their shedding methods, however the final two weeks on the highway totally crystallized their primary vulnerabilities.
Before Friday’s loss to the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco, coach Billy Donovan remarked that the Bulls had change into constant solely of their inconsistency, beating high groups such because the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics solely to show round and fumble video games towards shedding groups. But that’s not totally true.
The Bulls are constant of their three most obvious weaknesses: a dearth of 3-point capturing, a proclivity towards double-digit first-half deficits and a sample of faltering in clutch conditions.
They’re getting outscored by practically 9 factors per recreation from behind the arc and so they common a 3.7-point first-half deficit, worse than all however 5 NBA groups. As a results of these sluggish begins, the Bulls typically are left scrapping from behind and in the end falling brief, with a 2-9 file in clutch video games.
The issues are clear, however the options are much less easy.
“We understand it, we talk to each other every day, we watch film,” guard Zach LaVine mentioned. “We have delight. We have the urgency. It’s simply going on the market and executing it.
“We’ve got to find a rhythm out there. It’s us versus everybody. Nobody’s going to help us dig out of this hole besides us.”
There’s a silver lining, maybe, to this irritating sample. This Bulls group is clearly higher than its file. Wake up a couple of minutes earlier in a handful of video games, come by in a pair extra of these clutch situations and immediately it is a successful group with a seat within the higher third of the Eastern Conference.
The lack of 3-point capturing is probably going irreparable with out making roster acquisitions. But the intangibles are fixable. LaVine and DeRozan each cited mentality as a key for the Bulls. The group depends on power to drive the fundamentals — closeouts on the 3-point arc, creating offense by turnovers, defending the ball — which have fallen brief in current video games, a sample Donovan ascribed to an absence of focus.
Who will drive that mentality? Donovan holds a part of the duty, as do complementary veterans akin to Alex Caruso and Goran Dragić. But because it so typically does, sharpening the Bulls’ focus will come all the way down to the duo of DeRozan and LaVine.
Despite clear frustration, each gamers eagerly embraced that problem after the Bulls’ third straight loss.
“I’ve got the most confidence in the world,” DeRozan mentioned. “Once it clicks for us, it’s going to click on regardless of who we’re taking part in. That’s the great thing about sports activities, of life — whenever you get down, your true character exhibits. Who do you wish to be?
“We know it’s supposed to be frustrating, it’s supposed to hurt, it’s supposed to suck, it’s supposed to be all these things. Now how do we channel that and challenge ourselves to come out of this thing and make something out of it?”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com