Boylan confident he'll get fair shot at keeping his job
While the Bulls keep falling farther behind in the NBA's lamest playoff race of the past 20 years, coach Jim Boylan has made sure to keep his sense of humor on public display.
With the Bulls facing a must-win game against Atlanta tonight, Boylan was asked Monday about the status of his relationship with forward Andres Nocioni, who threw a tantrum on the bench Saturday, was sent to the locker room, then apologized following the Bulls' loss to Indiana.
"Noc and I are going to have a fight later on, so if you guys keep your cameras rolling, he and I are going to go two out of three," Boylan responded.
Boxing or mixed martial arts?
"I think we're going to do old-time wrestling," he added. "Bruno Sammartino vs. Hulk Hogan."
Boylan later planted a kiss on Nocioni's unshaven face, but that was more of a photo-op for the television cameras.
There are some serious questions to be addressed regarding the Bulls' frequent fourth-quarter collapses, poor player behavior and how they relate to Boylan's job status.
When Boylan replaced Scott Skiles as head coach Dec. 27, he was given the job on an interim basis for the remainder of the season. General manager John Paxson promised to re-evaluate the situation this summer.
"People are writing about that, thinking that I have no chance (to keep the job)," Boylan said following practice at the Berto Center. "I don't agree with that. My conversations with John have been very positive.
"I would think a fair evaluation would be if someone has a chance to have a training camp and get these guys organized and have some authority. It's not the easiest job in the world when you're the interim coach, when things start to go in the opposite direction, to reel guys back in. It makes it a little more difficult."
Are the players walking all over Boylan because they see him as a substitute teacher who won't be back when school starts again in October? Nocioni, for one, says no.
"It's not his fault what is happening right now," Nocioni said. "It's just the situation with the team. Nobody expected what happened this year. Nobody. So nobody was ready. The media, players, nobody was ready for the spot we are right now.
"I think everybody's a little bit frustrated. It's not Jim's fault. It's not John Paxson's fault. I think it's just difficult to put something in the right way when something is going really bad."
Boylan thought the authority question was better left for the players to answer, but he does seem to feel handicapped by the interim title.
"I think my position is a little bit more difficult than someone who's got a long-term deal," he said. "Players want to play. They want to please the coach so that they can play."
At the same time, Paxson has to evaluate whether Boylan could do a better job protecting late-game leads. When the Bulls squandered a 13-point, fourth-quarter advantage against Indiana, it was the third time in eight days they lost after holding a lead of at least 9 points in the final quarter.
The Bulls must be doing some things right, though. Building an 18-point lead over a red-hot Philadelphia team March 14 is proof that the players have not quit on Boylan or on the season.
After enduring a coaching change, the loss of top scorers Ben Gordon and Luol Deng due to injury, then a trade that added two new players to the rotation, the Bulls have struggled to meet the late-game intensity of their opponents.
"Some of it's offensive, but a lot of it is our defense," Boylan said. "We get a little tentative defensively, and I don't know if it's fatigue factor, but some of the things we do the first three quarters, we don't do with the same intensity and at the same level in the fourth quarter, so we end up giving up a lot of points."