Westerlund: Bulls' Friend 'Killer Instinct' Remains On The Lam
By Cody Westerlund--
CHICAGO (CBS) – It took until the 18th game of the season, but rookie coach Fred Hoiberg has officially been fully baptized into the maddening, puzzling, two-faced world of Chicago Bulls basketball.
The no-effort embarrassment came early, with Chicago falling 130-105 at Charlotte on Nov. 3 in the fifth game of the year. "No one had anyone's back," Hoiberg said then.
The woes of big-money point guard Derrick Rose have been a year-long theme, building little by little as he suffered a fractured orbital in the first practice, has struggled to shoot all season and flashed just enough here and there to keep hope alive that he can be a consistent difference-maker in a more positive manner, sometime down the line again.
Then came Monday night at the United Center, when the Bulls sealed the trifecta with an epic meltdown in which they followed their best defensive quarter of the season with their worst, allowing 42 points in the final frame to blow a 16-point lead and fall 103-101 to the Suns after nobody put a body on forward Mirza Teletovic, who then soared over Rose for an offensive rebound and flicked up a fadeaway 7-footer for the game-winner with 0.3 seconds left.
This was a reminder of what the Bulls (11-7) have lacked in recent years.
"You have to have that killer instinct," Hoiberg said. "We have yet to find it this year."
If you have any tips on the whereabouts of this killer instinct that's on the lam, the Bulls would appreciate it. Because they have no clue where it's at.
"If I could put a finger on it, I wish I could," said Rose, who thought Teletovic pushed him in the back just before the game-winner but didn't expect such a call in that situation.
"I don't know what it is," star wing Jimmy Butler said.
The reason this type of loss worries the Bulls and any casual observer is because it has the same feel as the defining setbacks of 2014-'15, including an entire season's trajectory changing when the Bulls blew a nine-point lead with just more than 12 minutes to play to the Cavaliers in Game 4 of a conference semifinal series that they led 2-1 at the time. After rallying for the Game 4 win, Cleveland won the final two games to eliminate Chicago.
Now, there are no indications that this 2015-'16 team is any tougher or more consistent than the 2014-'15 version.
"We got complacent thinking they were just going to lay down," Butler said.
Also on the run after the recent heist of the Bulls' heart is Killer Instinct's cousin, the elusive "It." There are 64 regular-season games remaining, so there's ample time to conduct the search, though ingraining proper behavior needs to begin sooner rather than later.
The Bulls know they'll be haunted until they find Killer Instinct and It, but to hear Gasol tell it, the question is whether this team has the desire to reunite.
"It's not a matter of finding it," Gasol said. "It's a matter of wanting it. It's a matter of doing it. It's not something that's lost. It's a matter of wanting to do it and working at it. It's not something you find. It's something you want or you don't."
"It's a heart thing. It's a chemistry thing. There's different factors that play a role there. You got to understand what's going on. How bad do we want this? Because games like this and games like Charlotte (a 102-96 loss on Saturday), we just can't afford to lose. There's a big difference in winning this type of game and losing them, at the end of the season. We're (putting) ourselves out of the playoffs right now."
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for CBSChicago.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.
