NEW YORK — A simple follow-up question turned into a three-minutes-and-change therapy session for Bulls coach Billy Donovan.
Then again, could you blame him?
Donovan has been begging his team to understand the importance about how it starts a game and establishes a mindset. He wants the Bulls to let other teams know that, make or miss shots, they are going to feel their physicality.
And while he never would come out and call his team soft, he has been trying to get his players to understand how more physicality might change the Bulls’ place in the standings.
‘‘I don’t know, and that’s the thing that’s a little mind-boggling, frustrating, whatever word you want to use,’’ Donovan said Sunday. ‘‘DeMar [DeRozan] has led our team in charges. He puts his body in plays, so he’s more than capable of doing that. . . . We’ve seen Vooch [Nikola Vucevic] rim-protect and go vertical. We’ve seen Zach [LaVine] come over and provide help when he needs to. It’s not like we’ve never done it.’’
Just not enough.
That was the case again in the Bulls’ 118-109 loss to the Nets. They built a 21-point lead in the first quarter, but it was courtesy of hot shooting, especially from three-point range (8-for-12, 66.7%). It wasn’t because they were physically wearing down the smaller Nets, who had wiped out the deficit and taken the lead by halftime.
‘‘We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable for a long stretch of time,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘When we’re down 20, then we’re uncomfortable. We’ve got to be uncomfortable right from the start, and it’s sustained. That’s been the challenge with this group: a sustained ability to do that for long stretches.’’
It’s a challenge Donovan and his staff long have been trying to solve. It has been discussed ad nauseam, has been shown on film almost daily and has led to three different starting groups through the first 18 games.
Still, all Donovan has been getting back are flashes of what he wants.
‘‘That’s what I’m constantly trying to talk to them about,’’’ Donovan said. ‘‘For me, it’s like, be really frustrated when you’ve just thrown everything into it. Not a half, not three quarters. There’s going to be missed block-outs, missed rotations, missed shots, all those types of things. You can’t be influenced by the ball going in the basket.’’
If executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas is going to make sweeping changes and is invested in Donovan as his long-term coach, as he has said, it would be in the best interest of the organization to add physical-minded players in some capacity.
‘‘When we’re screening, screen,’’’ Donovan said. ‘‘When you’re using a screen, use the screen. The shot goes up, hit somebody. There’s a drive, we’ve got to put our body in the play.’’
Mr. Energy
Rookie Julian Phillips wasn’t expecting to be thrown into the rotation Friday in Toronto, but he loved the playing time he got — all 4 minutes, 27 seconds of it.
That’s because he went in there with a specific order: Be the energy guy. It was an order he embraced.
‘‘That’s what they tell me: Just go in there and do what I do,’’ Phillips said. ‘‘Be myself, bring energy and make athletic plays. That’s the mindset I try to go in with every time.’’
‘‘Caru-Show’’ on hiatus
Guard Alex Caruso missed the game Sunday with a sore right foot, but he took part in warmups, so the feeling is that he won’t be out long.
Caruso, the Bulls’ best defender, has missed three games this season.
