Veteran DeMar DeRozan led the Bulls with 30 points, but also accounted for seven turnovers on a night in which the visiting team turned the ball over 21 times in the loss to the Magic.
John Raoux/AP
ORLANDO – There will be time for Billy Donovan to self-evaluate his season as Bulls coach and do a deeper dive into the job he’s done during this 2023-24 campaign.
He admittedly does that every year when the season comes to an end.
Proof that at least one member of the Bulls organization does believe in accountability.
For now, however, Donovan was keeping tunnel vision on trying to hold down the No. 9 seed in the Eastern Conference and earn the first-round home play-in game.
A low-bar mentality in the big picture?
Even Donovan wasn’t going to pretend otherwise on the same day his Bulls lost to the Orlando Magic 113-98
“I try to never use this as an excuse, but the reality is you’ve got $70 million not playing (in injured players Zach LaVine, Patrick Williams and Lonzo Ball), but I also said there’s enough in the locker room and I really believe that,” Donovan said of the coaching job he’s done this season. “If I’m going to sit there and say there’s enough in the locker room and we’ve been kind of going like this (up and down), treading water so to speak, maybe had some good moments, some bad moments, things like that, if there is enough there then I’ve got to figure out, ‘OK, what could I have done better or can I do more going forward to help these guys?’
“But I certainly didn’t come here (when I was hired in 2020) to say, ‘Hey listen, let’s be a play-in team.’ When I sat down first with (executive vice president) Arturas (Karnisovas) and Marc (Eversley) about this it was to try and build something. I still feel like we’re building something, but I don’t think anyone is happy with where we’re at.”
Where the Bulls are currently at is 37-41 with four games to play, and a game in front of idle Atlanta for the No. 9 spot.
Considering the Bulls own the tiebreaker over the Hawks it’s actually two games, but either way there’s no reason to start making the banners for those bragging rights.
Especially in the wake of a loss to the Magic in which the Bulls committed 21 turnovers and were outscored 28-11 in points off those turnovers.
Veteran DeMar DeRozan pointed the finger at himself first, and considering he accounted for seven giveaways he may have found the right guy.
“I put that on me,” DeRozan said. “That’s very uncharacteristic of myself, having seven turnovers. It’s going to eat me up (Sunday) night. We just tried to do too much instead of making the simple simple, we were trying to make the simple harder than it was.”
And still DeRozan gave his team a chance in the fourth, opening up the final quarter by outscoring the home team 13-7 midway through that final stanza on his way to a 30-point night.
Trailing by just six, however, a Paolo Banchero jumper and then a Joe Ingles three-pointer, and just like that the game slipped away.
If there was some intrigue throughout the game it was the trash talking going on between Ingles and Javonte Green, who was given the starting nod.
Green and Ingles shouted at each other several times, including Ingles drawing a technical for going in on the Bulls bench with some verbal sparring in the first half.
“It wasn’t nothing,” Green said of his back-and-forth with Ingles. “I guess you can call it friendly conversation. He just yelled something out when I was in the corner and shot that corner three (in the first quarter). I just let him know things have changed.”