This was the part of the schedule that the Bulls were supposed to flourish.
Coming out of the regular-season gate with the minefield of playoff caliber teams like Detroit, New York and Cleveland to navigate, Billy Donovan’s crew was looking forward to mid-November and into early December.
The Utahs, the Portlands, the Washingtons, New Orleans … time to feast.
They’ve done nothing of the sort.
So call Friday’s 123-116 loss to lowly Charlotte just the latest slap of embarrassment to the faces of the suddenly fading Bulls (9-9).
Eliminated from getting out of Group C for the in-season NBA Cup Tournament several nights ago, both teams were playing for pride rather than reaching the knockout round.
The Bulls, however, were playing for even more than that. Specifically, getting away from a growing league-wide reputation as coming up soft in the physicality department.
Donovan has seen opposing teams take that mentality from film to the floor for the last two weeks, and the coach knew it wasn’t about to come to a halt down in Tar Heel country.
Adding to the defensive issues and the lack of physicality was again being without Isaac Okoro, who has been sidelined with a back issue. That made the task even more difficult.
“With Isaac being out, and there’s times with Isaac that we can put him on different players, and he’s an outstanding defender, and he’s guarded some of the best players in this league throughout his career,” Donovan said. “But with him being out, we don’t have the luxury to just rely on one guy stopping one guy.”
Concerns that became reality for Donovan, as the home team scored 32 in the opening quarter and followed that up with a 35-point second quarter.
Not exactly what’s expected from a Hornets team that averages 115.3 points per game (20th in the NBA), but the same could be said for the loss to New Orleans on Monday against an offense that was near the bottom of the league in scoring and still dropped 143 on the Bulls.
Thank goodness for Coby White.
White’s 14-point third quarter put his team back in charge heading into the fourth, and that’s when the Bulls again slipped into some bad habits. That meant again getting outrebounded in the final stanza, including allowing five offensive rebounds.
“It’s a mentality,” Donovan said of the defense and physicality. “When you get into the season, you’re always fighting human nature. Human nature tells you you’re sore or you’re tired. There are a lot of physical things you have to do that are very challenging. I think we’ve been pretty clear on those things. There’s a level of consistency that has to be a lot better in those areas. They just got to do it, and they’ve got to do it when they don’t feel good.
“When you get into 20, 30 games, most of these guys don’t feel good. I don’t know any guy that’s 100 percent. It’s battling human nature all the time. How you do with internal talk, how you’re getting prepared, focusing on the things that you have control over? A lot of it is the controllable stuff.”
The pressing question is so now what will the Bulls do with this?
The schedule breather continues through this week, facing the two-win Pacers twice and hosting Brooklyn on Wednesday, with the only bump in the road being a Monday showdown in Orlando.
Then business picks up again in the middle of the month.
The Bulls will play back-to-back games with Cleveland, back-to-back games with Atlanta, and then end December on a six-game homestand with the likes of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Minnesota and Orlando.