Bulls’ Billy Donovan says quiet part out loud about roster after giving up 143 points to lowly Pelicans

The Chicago Bulls have been one of the NBA’s most pleasant surprises to start the season, but the team’s 143-130 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday night granted head coach Billy Donovan the opportunity to take an honest look at his roster.

Donovan was blunt when speaking about his team’s lack of defensive prowess, a weakness that was evident while the group was without center Nikola Vučević against the Pelicans.

“Our team, outside of maybe Isaac Okoro, we don’t have one guy on the team right now that you would sit there and ‘this guy’s a defensive stopper,” Donovan told Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic. “This is what this guy hangs his hat on.’ It’s not one guy’s fault, it’s all of us. It’s the coaches, the players. … It’s a team issue.”

The Bulls allowed the Pelicans to shoot 51 percent from the field and also surrendered 78 points in the paint. Eight players scored 10 or more points for the Pelicans in the winning effort. Chicago guard Coby White provided 24 points, but was honest about his squad’s lackluster defense.

“We don’t have the personnel of an Oklahoma City Thunder with all the individual defenders being really good,” White told Sam Smith of NBA.com. “So we have to do it collectively, we have to do it as a unit. We have to buy into and do it on a consistent basis. We’ve got to stay together and figure it out.”

Ayo Dosunmu scored a team-high 28 points for the Bulls, and provided an optimistic take on the team’s ability to become more effective on defense.

“We are trying to figure it out as a team, understand what we have to do,” said Dosunm.,“We continue to have conversations and are trying to find solutions. But at the end of day it comes within ourselves. The coaches can only do so much. We are playing the game, so we have to collectively do our jobs better. I wouldn’t say it’s frustrating because we understand what we have to do. We understand how we have to play and the times we play that way the results and outcomes we get.

“We’re a tight knit group,” reasoned Dosunmu. “It is early in the season and we just have to buckle down as a unit. We showed it plenty of times this season; we just have to do it on a consistent basis. We’ll do it because we love playing with each other and for each other.”

The Bulls are 9-8 on the season. They will take on the Hornets in Charlotte on Friday.

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