When coach Billy Donovan walked into the locker room after the Chicago Bulls dropped a depressing 124-104 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder of their residence opener, the air was already buzzing with frustration.
Donovan requested the group in the event that they wanted a second alone. Players responded in settlement.
Game 1 may appear early for a gamers’ assembly after a loss. But Donovan emphasised conversations weren’t disrespectful and by no means spiraled uncontrolled: “It’s not like they were screaming at each other.” And the fervent need to hash out the errors that led to the loss felt like a necessity for the gamers within the locker room.
“I think it’s good that we had those,” middle Nikola Vučević stated. “It was needed. It was just regular discussions of what needed to be done. It wasn’t nothing crazy, no fighting, none of that. Just really constructive. It’s maybe one of the first times since I’ve been here that it was like this and it was really needed.”
That frustration stemmed from the second half, when the Bulls misplaced a one-point lead then clawed again to a one-point deficit solely to permit a 15-point run in a five-minute span between the tip of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth.
The Bulls misplaced their offensive rhythm within the second half and shot 12-for-42 from 3-point vary within the loss.
“I don’t feel like we played with enough heart and that’s on us,” guard Zach LaVine stated. “It’s a horrible approach to come out to begin the season. It’s unacceptable.
”Guys need to win. You put up a sport like this in Game 1, you’re gonna have some conversations. Guys are annoyed and you need to be. Good factor, it simply sucks to have it occur in Game 1.”
In order to enhance this season, Donovan feels the Bulls have to learn to push by dire moments of poor taking pictures — a well-known weak point from final season.
“You can just tell guys get down, they get dejected,” Donovan stated. “There’s got to be some resiliency and some fight to get through that.”
Confrontation had already sparked on the Bulls bench earlier than the ultimate whistle. Vučević stormed to the sideline halfway by the third quarter, exchanging heated phrases with Donovan centered on an absence of touches and motion by the paint by the Bulls.
Donovan acknowledged that he and Vučević might have “handled the moment better” however stated he by no means felt the battle went too far. And Donovan felt the depth of response from gamers — each by Vučević on the sidelines and your entire group within the locker room — mirrored enchancment within the total psyche of the roster.
“That would have never happened last year. Ever. The confrontation piece is a sign that it’s important and that they know there’s things we need to do better,” Donovan stated. “If that’s happening in Game 1, I think it’s in some ways really, really good because people are now stepping up saying, ‘Hey, there’s certain things that have just got to be better.’”
The Bulls are already on the mistaken foot to begin the season. They’ll check the effectiveness of Wednesday’s studying curve once they host the Toronto Raptors on Friday earlier than heading on a three-game street journey to face the Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers and Dallas Mavericks.
With a roster that hardly modified from final season, it’s clear that enhancements should be made internally — and rapidly to keep away from falling behind within the East.
“Every issue is fixable,” Vučević stated. “We talked about it. We’re all aware of it. We’ve just got to fix it now.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com