PHOENIX – There’s a realness to DeMar DeRozan.
Then again, growing up in Compton doesn’t allow much of anything else.
So the Bulls veteran wasn’t going to “B.S.” his teammates about where they were in the season with just 12 regular-season games left, and the team crawling toward the finish line rather than sprinting with the bravado they showed back in November and December.
The way DeRozan saw it, “we’re past that.”
Evident in the 129-102 embarrassment suffered at the hands of the Phoenix Suns on Friday night.
No, this is now about throwing out the idea of waiting for teammates to get healthy, forgetting about playing time and roles, and start taking the approach of doing whatever it takes to win games – regular season and playoffs.
“Especially when you’re going through a little adversity, dropping the last few games, things haven’t been going right, but with that you have to understand that it has to push you to more of a concentration and a sense of urgency to go out there and compete … whoever is out there playing,” DeRozan said. “We can’t sit back and say, ‘Four games from now maybe we’ll have this person back, this person back.’ We gotta have this motivate us, drive us to help get us to understand that things are tough and we gotta figure it out. Before you know it the playoffs are going to be here, so we’ve got to figure it out. Can’t rely on who is possibly coming.”
That’s been DeRozan’s message for weeks, and he wasn’t alone in that. Coach Billy Donovan, guard Alex Caruso, veteran Tristan Thompson, they’ve each been trying to emphasize that approach.
There was almost a woes-us mentality hanging over the Bulls when Caruso, Patrick Williams, Lonzo Ball and Zach LaVine were sidelined last month, and it seemingly had a hangover effect.
Well, LaVine (knee) and Caruso (wrist) have returned – although neither will likely get to 100% until the offseason – and Williams (wrist) was expected back by next week.
However, there was still the same issues happening on the court, specifically on the defensive end, and DeRozan’s reached the point of enough was enough.
“We’ve got to lean on each other to fix this,” DeRozan said.
Not soon enough, as the Bulls allowed the best team in the Western Conference to overcome a slow shooting start out of the gate, only to finish shooting 56% from the field and 44% from three. Meanwhile, the Bulls offense was stagnant most of the night, as DeRozan went 6-for-14, LaVine went 1-for-7, and Nikola Vucevic went 8-for-16.
Bigger concern? The Bulls’ “Big Three” was a combined minus-73 in plus/minus.
And not the only repairs needed.
After the Suns loss, the Bulls were 3-18 against teams currently with a winning percentage of .600 or better, and just 1-10 against the Eastern Conference teams.
The danger that DeRozan was trying to avoid was his locker room starting to buy into the belief that they have had a good year, but just can’t compete against the elite teams. If a majority of the Bulls carry that into April and beyond, expect a short postseason run.
“We just got to understand our mistakes,” DeRozan said of that mindset lingering. “We’ve kind of got to look at ourselves at why we drop games, why we can have a bad quarter defensively, offensively? You just got to lean on us more so than anything to make those corrections. That way it can carry over once we get to the playoffs.
“There’s no footprint to it. You can struggle against certain teams in the regular season and beat them in the playoffs, but it’s really who can figure it out and do so quickly. As much as I hate losing, sometimes when you get knocked down you’ve got to figure out yourself more in-depth, so it could be beneficial once playoffs come. I think that’s where we’re at, trying to understand ourselves, get more in-depth, what are we really made out of? It’s about digging down and seeing what we can get out of ourselves. For me that’s the beauty of the challenge.”