Bulls looking to make strong closing arguments as regular season nears
While the competition for the Bulls’ starting five was well publicized during training camp, who closes games will be more important for a group that struggled in that department.
Nam Y. Huh/AP
Billy Donovan critics couldn’t wait to pounce.
They seldom do.
Several of the personnel substitutions in the season-ending play-in loss to the Miami Heat not only backfired, but seemingly played a part in the visiting team’s fourth-quarter meltdown.
Not exactly the lasting impression on the 2022-23 season that the Bulls coach wanted to take into an early summer vacation.
There was removing the spark plug that was Andre Drummond with eight minutes left, and then pulling out Coby White for Patrick Beverely with just over two minutes left. Neither seemed to work, as the six-point lead slowly faded.
Donovan explained both decisions afterward, and neither was out of the ordinary of his substitution patterns during the regular season. And maybe that was the problem.
As great as the Bulls were in the 2021-22 playoff season in clutch games (a 25-16 record), it went completely south last year. The 15-23 record in those situations was the second worst in the NBA.
So while a lot has been made of who will be starting for the Bulls when they tip-off the regular season on Oct. 25, Donovan is still trying to figure out who he will be closing with.
“That equally as important, who you’re closing with, and we’ve got a number of guys that we’ve got to look at,’’ Donovan said. “Sometimes it’s matchup, sometimes personnel; it’s those kinds of things. The first week (of training camp) I think you’re trying to install who you want to be offensively, who you want to be defensively, but I do think that having times in practice where you’re actually scrimmaging those situations – whether it’s the last five minutes of the game, whether it’s defending a three with a tie score – there’s so many situations.
“Certainly for us, so far in practice, we would have different guys closing in different situations.’’
And unfortunately, practices and intersquad scrimmages are the only place to continue the experiment. Through the first three preseason games, closing time was in the hands of the backend of the extended roster to get some work. While Donovan said that he planned to play his regulars more minutes in the final two preseason games, late in-game situations likely won’t change.
Which means expect it to remain a work in progress.
What Donovan liked was he had options. The editions of Torrey Craig and Jevon Carter give him that.
“We have a lot of guys that can finish in certain situations,’’ Donovan said. “Theoretically, you’re up by five points with maybe 20 seconds to go, maybe you decide to go all defense in that situation. The last five minutes of the game, based on who the other team has out there, maybe we feel we have guys that have guarded a guy particularly well. So I do feel we have some versatility certainly defensively, to play a number of guys closing a game.’’
What that will look like? Expect Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan to be cemented in, while Nikola Vucevic is all but a shoo-in unless there’s a really bad matchup or Donovan wants to close with a small group.
Alex Caruso has been used to close his share of games because of his defense, but Donovan can also go Carter, Craig or Patrick Williams.
LaVine knows what group has caught his eye, not only in the Thursday double-overtime win against Denver, but in scrimmages.
“The main thing that I watch there is AC (Caruso), Ayo (Dosunmu), and T-Craig were on the floor, and it was steal after steal, havoc, everybody on the ground,’’ LaVine said. “You’re going to see a lot of different lineups in the preseason, that’s just normal. You might as well test it out.’’