Hot-shooting Hawks bury Bulls in season-opener
There are nights when no fans in the seats is a blessing.
Roughly 21,000 paying customers were spared from trekking to the United Center on Wednesday and booing until their voices gave out.
The Bulls' season-opener was not a pleasant experience. They were thumped by the Atlanta Hawks 124-104 after falling behind by as many as 40 points in the third quarter.
Hopefully, those folks who would have gone to the game had a pleasant evening once they changed the channel or turned off the Bulls.
"Wake up call, you got punched, slap in the face, whatever," Zach LaVine said after the game. "You can't let it determine your whole season first game. We've got to stay together. If you lose by 100 points or 1 point, it's still one loss. We've got to be a better team. We've got to take it in stride and be ready for the next one."
Expectations for this young Bulls team should be low. But this debacle is also a function of having a new coach and a very short training camp. The Bulls will get better. How long it will take and how good they'll get remains to be seen.
Coach Billy Donovan didn't have much time to teach during the abbreviated training camp. And some of the older guys on the roster like Thad Young, Garrett Temple and Tomas Satoransky have been out due to a leg infection, bout with COVID-19 and contact tracing, respectively.
"Obviously, the stuff we have is new," Coby White said. "But as professional basketball players, we've got to adapt quickly. We can't make excuses. The shortened training camp, the new coaching staff - we can't make excuses. We've got to come out there and play. It's on us to come out there and be ready to compete every night.
"Tonight I didn't come ready to play like I was supposed to. Got to move on, but also remember this feeling that I don't want to have any more. Just got to keep competing and getting better."
White finished his rookie season on a nine-game tear, but started sophomore year with a 2-for-11 shooting performance. He finished with 9 points and 7 assists.
"Coby has to play well for us to play well," Donovan said. "It's not even necessarily about what he shot because I actually thought he took good shots tonight. He has to play well in terms of really leading and organizing and getting our guys in the right spots."
The Bulls' biggest problem was obvious. They couldn't play any defense and didn't have Kris Dunn around to bother Hawks star Trae Young. Atlanta hit 7 of its first 8 shots, while Young eventually piled up 37 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists. He hit 12 of 14 free throws.
LaVine led the Bulls with 22 points, despite picking up his fifth foul less than two minutes into the third quarter. Lauri Markkanen added 21.
Rookie Patrick Williams started at small forward and became the youngest player in Bulls history to start the season-opener at 19 years, four months. Williams scored 16 points in his NBA debut with 4 rebounds.
One surprise in the rotation was Donovan turned to two-way player Adam Mokoka for 17 minutes of action. He might be the best perimeter defender on the Bulls' roster, but it was mostly because Temple, Satoransky and Denzel Valentine have missed a ton of practice time.
"They didn't feel they were ready," Donovan said. "Adam had no medical issues at all, he had passport issues. And he had been working out and maintaining a level of conditioning. Those three guys, if they were available, would have played."
Twitter: @McGrawDHBulls