Bulls take on more games in January, still looking for consistent play
The last thing Billy Donovan needed piled on the back end of his January schedule were more games.
But there they came on Monday, as the NBA announced that the postponed Jan. 8 game with Miami will now be played at the United Center on Jan. 29.
Not exactly a coach’s dream, considering Donovan will have to deal with the emotion of the Derrick Rose jersey retirement game on Jan. 24, face the Celtics that night, the Lakers two nights later, head down the highway to Indiana on Jan. 28, and now face the Heat three straight games in four nights.
The league did bump the first game on South Beach, moving it from Jan. 30 to the next night, but that still means four games in five nights to welcome in February and the trade deadline on the 5th.
An even bigger concern for Donovan? The rescheduled condensation fiasco now means the Bulls will go into that trade deadline playing nine games in 15 days.
If there’s a move made in the days or weeks leading up to that deadline, that also means possibly less bodies available while players change zip codes and get brought up to speed.
The Bulls went through that last February, as Zach LaVine was traded in a three-team deal, bringing in Kevin Huerter, Tre Jones and Zach Collins, but because executive Arturas Karnisovas was still trying to make another deal happen and was considering using one or several of the new assets in a possible package, the trio couldn’t practice or really get up to speed on Donovan’s system.
It was days in limbo, and a short-handed bench as the Bulls went 1-6 in that transition period.
That would be just fine for an organization sitting at 18-20 and not really concerned with the standings over increasing lottery odds for a loaded 2026 draft class, but the Bulls aren’t that organization.
The mentality for Donovan remains continuing to try and build a more physical identity on the defensive end while also establishing habits that the players can embrace no matter what changes may or may not be coming for the roster.
“(Winning) is what we are here to do, but there are also times you walk off the court and say, ‘How do you want to lose?’ Because you are not going to win every game,” Donovan said recently. “What does losing look like? I want it to look (if it comes to that) like a hard-nosed, competitive team that is laying it on the line and getting after it every single minute. And if the results happen and are not what we want, we can maybe start to correct the mistakes and areas we need to get better.”
Obviously a work in progress as the Bulls dropped three straight before the one-sided 125-107 beating of the Mavericks on Saturday. And with the Bulls sitting at 25th in defensive rating entering the Tuesday game in Houston, they’re residing in the same neighborhood as struggling teams like the Clippers, Kings and Pelicans.
Fortunately for Donovan, it now looks like he’ll be getting a lot of games to try and flip that the next few weeks.
“There are things we can do,” Donovan added. “I’m not saying that is enough and we are going to win games doing those things, but I am saying that at least puts you in the conversation of being competitive, and that’s what I am trying to do, to have these guys in position where they are collectively competing.”