Bulls coaching staff deals with scouting Detroit on short notice
The Bulls and Pistons weren't scheduled to play at all during the first half of the season. So both coaching staffs had to scramble to create scouting reports.
Detroit, especially, has plenty of new faces. Leading scorer Jerami Grant played for Billy Donovan in Oklahoma City, while rookie forward Saddiq Bey replaced Blake Griffin in the lineup recently.
Donovan was asked before the game if he felt there was enough time to prepare.
"I don't know if you ever feel that way, right? Yeah, there was a lot to get ready for because as a staff you have guys that are working on Charlotte to get prepared to play them," he said. "Obviously now you're playing a team that wasn't even on your schedule, so there was no reason to prepare.
"We basically started preparing once we found out, but it's the same thing for them. They're in the same situation, so both teams are dealing with the same thing. We had a shootaround this morning. We had time as a staff to watch film on the plane coming back, and then last night and this morning. There was enough time to prepare."
The Bulls stayed in Indianapolis after Monday's game because of the snowstorm. They found out Wednesday's game scheduled for Charlotte was canceled due to health and safety protocols. Donovan said they got word that playing the Pistons was a good possibility before they boarded the plane to return home Tuesday.
"For us, it hasn't been much different," Bulls guard Garrett Temple said. "But for the coaching staff, I can imagine how difficult that was. We typically don't watch film on the team until the day before or the day of. And they'll send us the information to our phones.
"We had a normal shootaround as players just going against a team we haven't seen before. The coaches had to do a lot of overtime, I would imagine. I'm actually glad we were able to play today to keep that same semblance of a schedule."