Bulls first practice under Thibodeau long, but focused

Tom Thibodeau officially took over as Bulls head coach in late June. He moved into his new office at the Berto Center and hired a support staff.

He has been on the job for a while, but it was still a milestone when Thibodeau led his first team meeting on Monday and initial practice Tuesday as an NBA head coach. He spent 20 years working as an assistant before finally getting a promotion.

"My first thoughts would be he's organized," Bulls forward Carlos Boozer said following Tuesday's morning session. "He studies the game; he knows the game through and through. He's very intense. He's into it."

Thibodeau may not be the most dynamic public speaker in the basketball world, which could be a reason it took so long for him to get a head job. But Bulls guard Derrick Rose reported that Thibodeau has no trouble getting his message across.

"He'll talk for two or three hours, so you've got to shorten your conversation with him real quick," Rose said with a laugh. "Come up with a good lie or something. Have one of your friends call you and say you have to go pick them up. For him to be shy and not talkative, he'll talk to you for hours."

As it turns out, communication was the subject of Thibodeau's first training camp speech. According to Rose, the new coach wants to make sure the players can speak out to one another without creating any hard feelings.

"He was just laying down laws, making sure that everybody is here for the right reason; holding everybody accountable when they're on the court," Rose said. "Just making sure we get familiar with each other, so that nobody will get mad at somebody coming up to a player like, 'Come on man, get it together.' You've got to learn how to talk to people in different ways because people take stuff in different ways."

For his part, Thibodeau didn't make a big deal about his first official NBA practice, which technically was a light walk through on Monday evening after the Bulls endured media day.

The Tuesday morning session lasted more than three hours. Boozer mentioned how the pace was sharp. The timer was set on the scoreboard clock and when it expired, everyone moved onto the next drill.

"I'm excited about the group that we have," Thibodeau said. "They want to work, they want to get better. I think the big challenge for all of us is to be able to sustain that over the course of the season."

During his years as an assistant, Thibodeau built his reputation as one of the league's top defensive strategists. But it would be incorrect to assume the New England native spent 98 percent of his first Bulls session focused on defense.

"I think you begin with the end in mind," he said. "You want to be playing your best basketball in the playoffs. Teams that have success in the playoffs are well-balanced. So we just can't focus on defense and not put anything into the offense. We can't do the opposite, either. You can't just work on offense and neglect the defense. Each practice, I think, will reflect that."