Bulls still working to improve defense

Committing a franchise- record-low 7 fouls against Golden State on Thursday doesn't necessarily mean the Bulls are now a great defensive team. They are still working hard to learn how first-year coach Tom Thibodeau expects them to play on the defensive end.

“He's teaching us all, really, how to move our feet, how to guard different positions and even defending the post differently. So it's a big difference (from last year),” forward Taj Gibson said. “In practice we do drills where we guard different positions. Sometimes I guard Luol (Deng), I guard James (Johnson). In games, we switch a lot. So we do a lot of different drills that get us ready.”

Fouls were a huge problem at the start of the season, especially when they committed 28 in the opening-night loss at Oklahoma City.

After the 120-90 win over the Warriors, Derrick Rose talked about a specific drill that encourages the players to focus on individual defense.

“Every day we work on it where we have to stick each other 1-on-1 and if we make a cheap foul or a foul to bail them out, he'll make us start over,” Rose said. “You learn how to play good defense or you're going to be out there all day.”

“It's tough,” added veteran guard Keith Bogans. “One-on-1, you go until you score. We match up every day and it's a battle. I think it's really helping us out as a team.”

Hinrich returns again:

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau had kind words for ex-Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich, who was basically given to Washington on draft night to create more cap space.

“Hinrich, I think the guy is so underrated,” Thibodeau said. “He does so many different things for that team. He keeps them organized. He plays tough. There's his ability to make plays off the dribble.”

Hinrich is starting next to rookie John Wall and averaging 11 points and 3.8 assists in 36 minutes, similar to what he did for the Bulls last season.

Dual defensive strategists:

Tom Thibodeau was widely credited for creating the defensive strategies in Boston the last three years. Bulls assistant Ron Adams was hailed for turning around Oklahoma City's defense the previous two seasons.

Now that they're on the same staff, who is in charge of the Bulls' defense, which is still a work in progress?

“Well, it's our defense,” Thibodeau said with a laugh. “It's our team's defense. That's the defense it is. The same thing, offensively. We've been close friends for 20 years. We share basically the same philosophy.”