SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Billy Donovan spent late Saturday night and into Sunday afternoon with his head buried in film, back to the lab again.
Considering where the Bulls are in the Eastern Conference standings and what they still have left in front of them to try and accomplish, the coach has no problem playing mad scientist with his lineup at this point of the season.
The latest monster he unveiled came against the Rockets where he teamed bigs Zach Collins and Jalen Smith together in the first half, and then late in the game went with a look of Collins and starting center Nikola Vucevic on the floor together.
Fair to call it mixed results and still a work in progress.
“There’s going to be some time in the year where that’s going to present itself and we’ll look at that,” Donovan said of marching out a duo of bigs. “It was OK. The biggest thing for Jalen is what we need him to do is really stretch the floor and shoot.”
Preferably at a higher efficiency than he got in the three-point loss to Houston.
Smith, who had seen his minutes dry up with Vucevic returning from a calf injury and Collins emerging, finished 2-of-7 from the field, but 0-of-5 from three-point range.
“I like the shots (Smith) got even though he didn’t really make any, but he’s got to keep taking those,” Donovan said. “I’ll look at the film, but I thought it was fine. I thought we rebounded OK in that first half, we were pretty physical.”
And that physicality was the key in why this twin towers experiment could continue to get some legs.
While the Bulls have made a jump in being more physical since the All-Star break, they still continue to come up short in the rebounding department against bigger frontcourts. Donovan had been kicking around the idea of a Vucevic-Collins look for weeks, but Vucevic was sidelined, as well as there being concerns that it could slow down the high pace the Bulls need to play at.
Saturday presented itself as a perfect time to try both combinations, especially with the Rockets playing their two bigs at the same time in Alperen Sengun and Steven Adams.
Donovan still wanted to watch the film, but the eye test told him there was something there.
Smith and Collins got the first look late in the first quarter, and while neither scored the ball well, they did get through the grouping with a plus-2 in plus/minus.
What Donovan really noticed, however, was the continued jump in not being bullied in the paint.
“I think our guys are lining up and competing,” Donovan said. “They’re really trying to play physical, so I’ve been really pleased with a pretty significant jump in that area from earlier in the year to where we are now.”
Collins started the fourth quarter with rookie Matas Buzelis and Patrick Williams as his frontcourt partners, and quickly tied the game with a tip-in.
Donovan kept his centers staggered until 3:32 left in the game with Houston’s Adams at the free throw line. But the Rockets pulled Adams second later, not only because Adams is a terrible free throw shooter, but because they wanted to go small.
Donovan read the chessboard and then pulled Collins for Patrick Williams, so the Collins-Vucevic look was brief at best.
That’s why Collins was all in on getting a sustained run alongside the veteran.
“To play with a guy like Vooch, who is so smart, it would just be so easy to figure out with a guy like that,” Collins said. “He’s a veteran, he knows how to play basketball, and his skillset is a complement to a lot of different things.”