Two words not in the vocabulary of Bulls coach Billy Donovan? Slow down

Coach Billy Donovan is not about to hold up a stop sign. He doesn’t even feel the need to grab a sign that reads “Slow Down.”

His offense can’t afford to.

It’s too undersized, too inexperienced playing together and frankly just not good enough in halfcourt sets.

“You have to look at, are they capable of playing that way?” Donovan said when discussing the need to keep his offensive philosophy intact. “Are they conditioned for that? We’re trying to obviously get that done.

‘‘The other point is, if we don’t try to play in transition and play fast, we don’t have enough cohesiveness and chemistry to be this team where we’re going to out-execute you in the halfcourt.’’

Of all the traded players, center Nikola Vucevic has been the hardest to replace because of his skills as a versatile big man and his IQ.

“A lot of what we did, the biggest adjustment has been not having Vooch here,” Donovan said. “He was such a facilitator and a pocket player, a guy who can score at different levels. You ran offense through him.

‘‘That’s taken away some of the package. If we try to play in the halfcourt, one, we don’t have enough [practice] time to work on that execution, and, two, the way the league is going, you want to play a little faster.”

As long as the legs hold up.

While Donovan thinks Collin Sexton, Rob Dillingham and Anfernee Simons have the ability to play up-tempo basketball, their conditioning says otherwise. He wants to avoid more injuries.

“What’s been difficult for me is as much as you want to practice, you have guys coming in here who are playing more minutes now than they did at their prior teams,” Donovan said.

“There is a concern medically that we’ve got to be careful that if these guys get ramped up so many minutes, [they could] end up going out.”

Size matters

The Bulls’ frontcourt continued to thin out with forward Patrick Williams in street clothes with a quadriceps strain. He was injured in the loss to the Hornets.

“[Williams’ timetable] will probably be at least a week,” Donovan said.

“It could be longer, although I think they would try to ramp him up and do some more in about a week [after they] can get it to calm down.”

Forward/center Jalen Smith remained sidelined with a calf issue and, like Williams, was at least a week away from starting to get reconditioned.

That leaves undersized 6-7 Guerschon Yabusele as the starting center for the time being.

Closer look

While Donovan is still trying to figure out exact roles and combinations for the roster, one player he already has tabbed as having a chance to be an improved defender down the stretch is Sexton.

That hasn’t been Sexton’s reputation throughout his career, but Donovan said the skill is there.