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After their sixth straight loss — and their 12th in the last 15 games — it would be an understatement to say the Chicago Bulls are struggling. In this scenario, most NBA teams would be preparing to unleash the end of their bench and “see what the young guys’ got.”<\/p>\n
Bulls Head Coach Billy Donovan is, however reluctantly, trying his best to do the same. But his young, end-of-bench, potential-laden group is failing to capitalize on the opportunity.<\/p>\n
And after a 10-point home loss to the lowly Brooklyn Nets, the Hall of Fame coach was unable to keep his frustrations from bubbling over.<\/p>\n
Chicago has been decimated by injuries during this six-game skid. On one hand, that hurts (no pun intended) the Bulls’ chances of winning games. But on the other, it gives players like Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips opportunities to prove to Donovan they’re deserving of legitimate rotation roles once the injuries subside.<\/p>\n
They have not.<\/p>\n
During Chicago’s six-game skid, Jalen Smith has missed four games; Coby White and Kevin Huerter have both missed three; Tre Jones has missed two; and Ayo Dosunmu and Nikola Vucevic have each missed one.<\/p>\n
With key players absent on a nightly basis, Terry has only managed two appearances and played 18.8 minutes per contest with averages of 6.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals. He had one assist and five turnovers and shot 20.0 percent (1-for-5) from three.<\/p>\n
Phillips had a more significant run, but he was even more disappointing than Terry. The 22-year-old played 17.7 minutes per game in five of the six games and averaged 5.4 points and 2.0 rebounds. He attempted only 20 shots over his 89 minutes and got to the free-throw line once.<\/p>\n
In the aforementioned loss to Brooklyn, Terry played 18 minutes and scored six points while adding five rebounds and a pair of steals. Not awful. Phillips, on the other hand, started and played 28 minutes.<\/p>\n
He took six shots and scored five points.<\/p>\n
After the game, Donovan wasn’t pulling any punches, per The Athletic<\/em>. Though he didn’t call anyone out by name, it’s safe to assume Phillips, Terry and potentially 25-year-old wing Emanuel Miller, who posted a minus-11 in eight minutes, were the main targets.<\/p>\n “\u201cListen, I\u2019m not going to make any excuses, because I always think players want opportunities to play and compete. And you know what? For some guys, this may be the best opportunity they got. To me, you should be playing all-out crazy hard and really, really physical and say, \u2018Listen, if this ends because we get healthy, at least I made an effort.\u2019 … “I did not think we did that. I don’t.””<\/p>\n Bulls Head Coach Billy Donovan<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It’s one thing for your head coach to critique your half-court execution or point out your missed defensive rotations. But if he questions your effort and physicality while emphasizing it may be “the best opportunity” you received to make an impression? That should be a massive wake-up call at the very least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chicago’s head coach made it clear he expects more from a group of prospects who have the potential to change the Bulls’ season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":125336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"yoast_head":"\n