(670 The Score) The Billy Donovan era opened with the Bulls losing 125-104 to the Rockets in their preseason opener at a fan-less United Center on Friday night. Here are a few observations from the Bulls’ first game in more than nine months.
Defense-less D
The Bulls gave up 68 points in the first half and allowed the Rockets to shoot 24-of-52 on 3-pointers. The Bulls stayed in their base defense – which now features more dropping in pick-and-roll coverage – and didn’t make any adjustments, Donovan said. They also didn’t conduct much of a scouting report at all on the Rockets, Wendell Carter Jr. added, as they've been focused on other areas in training camp.
That didn’t mean there weren’t big red flags. Most concerning to Donovan in his first game as Bulls coach was the team’s inability to keep the Rockets out of the lane.
“The thing that I thought where we really got to improve upon is there were way too many drives to the basket uncontested,” Donovan said. “I thought they had a lot of paint points. He didn’t provide enough help. We didn’t shrink the floor enough. I didn’t think our help was great enough there.”
Learn from the ugliness
While Donovan didn’t like what he saw from much of the Bulls in their opener, he also wasn’t upset.
“This was really good for us, because we got our ass kicked in a lot of ways, which was good,” Donovan said. “But I think it also gives us a point of reference from the standpoint of things that we got to focus on and where we got to get better.”
Donovan is trying to instill a culture that will be marked by more defensive fundamentals, which he didn’t see much of.
“We did not guard the ball well enough,” he said. “We did not help well enough. And we didn’t block out well enough. We got to build those habits.”
Running the show
After shootaround Friday morning, Donovan detailed that he’d be judging Coby White as a point guard not so much by his individual play but by how the entire offense flowed. He wants White to be a “connector” for others.
It was a rocky start for White and the Bulls as they fell behind 14-2 early on. White ended up producing with 15 minutes and six assists against two turnovers in 23 minutes, but the Bulls’ offense didn’t flow smoothly. White graded his performance as a “3 or a 4” on a 1-10 scale.
“I played point guard all the way up to last year for the most part,” White said. “So just gotta get back in a rhythm. It’s a learning process for me. And I’m enjoying it. I’m always open to learning. I’m always open ears. It’s been fun for me. I know I’m going to get better and better.”
Donovan called White’s start “slow” but liked what he saw afterward.
“He was trying to find his way,” Donovan said. “When he came back in the second quarter, he played certainly a lot more better and comfortable.”
Williams impresses in debut
Rookie forward Patrick Williams made his professional debut, entering late in the first quarter as the Bulls’ ninth man. He filled the power forward spot in his initial minutes and later filled the small forward role too. He scored 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting and added three rebounds and three assists in 25 minutes. Two of Williams’ missed shots were 3-pointers as he did all of his damage inside the arc.
He displayed a nice touch in the paint and floater range that the team had praised quite a bit early in training camp. Williams’ teammates were telling him to be aggressive, he said.
“It just kind of made the game easier not only for me but my other teammates,” Williams said. “The defense had to now see me as a threat. It wasn’t more so for me, but it kind of opened up driving lanes for other players and things like that.”
Defensively, Williams was beat off the dribble a couple times by quick players and found himself isolated on John Wall and Eric Gordon on a couple occasions. Off the ball defensively, he looked like he knew his place.
“Guarding them was definitely a challenge,” Williams said of Wall and Gordon.
Keep firing
Bulls center Wendell Carter Jr. had a poor night. Defensively, he was beat off the dribble on a couple occasions. Offensively, he had four points on 1-of-7 shooting, including 0-of-5 on 3-pointers, in 19 minutes. Carter didn't play in the second half, which was a pre-planned move, Donovan said.
Donovan thought that Carter could’ve attempted 10 3-pointers if the Bulls had found him every time they should’ve, and he wants him to keep firing. Carter was 12-of-61 (19.7%) on 3-pointers in his first two NBA seasons.
“This is good for him because he’s getting the freedom to kind of handle the ball up top, make some decisions, pass it,” Donovan said. “He put himself into a couple tough situations with spacing. But again, I want him taking those. If he does, it pulls the other team’s center out to him and opens up the lane and allows us to drive.”
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for 670TheScore.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.
