DETROIT – Coby White pulled no punches in assessing his team’s lack of defensive effort in Sunday’s embarrassing performance against Houston, and less than 24 hours later, White’s coach followed suit.
“I give him credit,” Billy Donovan said of White. “I think what he echoed after the game was exactly how I felt coming off the game. From my perspective, I’ve always felt as an opposing coach coming into Chicago, we have a great homecourt advantage and a great crowd, and we need to do a much better job of using that for our advantage. Because they are certainly more than waiting for us to give them something to get excited about. In that game the physicality part of it, we just didn’t … it wasn’t there, it was nonexistent.”
After the 143-107 loss to the Rockets at the United Center, White continued to show his growth as a leader, and according to one source, wanted to make his message loud and clear publicly to the media after first attempting to keep it inside the locker room the last week.
Not only White showing maturity, but also pulling from the DeMar DeRozan playbook of holding everyone accountable, including himself.
“Giving up 140-plus in back-to-back games is unacceptable,” White told reporters. “It’s embarrassing. It’s a disservice to the organization, a disservice to the fan base.”
And was 100% White speaking the truth.
“I understand where Coby’s coming from,” Donovan said. “We’ve talked a lot to them, at least I have, of what it means to play here. I do think these guys have pride, I know Coby’s got pride, and I think the rest of our guys do, but you got to be mentally tougher than whether or not we’re going to be a team that misses shots, we have no chance.
“You’ve got to find other ways to make yourself competitive. I always say it comes down to the physicality part, to loose basketballs, to taking a charge. I mean we’ve taken two charges all season. For our team as small (as it is), someone’s going to have to put their body in plays. We’ve got to be able to do more of that.”
Donovan was asked if dummying down all the defensive coverages to try and simplify things was on the table, and the coach admitted that had already been done somewhat.
But in watching the film Monday morning, Donovan and the staff came to the same conclusion they did during the game with the Rockets: Scheme had nothing to do with the defensive breakdowns as much as effort and communication.
That’s the work in progress for this defense – communicating. Especially for the younger players.
Second-year wing Julian Phillips didn’t argue that.
“That’s one of the most important parts of defense, the communication part,” Phillips said. “Communicating coverages, communicating matchups, who is in what spot, all that stuff, so of course that’s something we’re definitely trying to always do just so that everyone is on the same page, and when we’re not, that’s when we’re giving up easy layups, fouls, things like that. It’s definitely something we have to continue to get better at.”
Foot fetish
Forward Patrick Williams was probable on the injury report with soreness in the same left foot that required surgery and ended his 2023-24 season last year, but Donovan said it was considered normal considering all the games Williams has played in this condensed November schedule.
Very strong
For those worried about draft placement and standings positioning this early? The Bulls have the fifth easiest schedule remaining this season. A reminder of how tough the schedule was out of the gate for Donovan’s crew.