Westerlund: Bulls Lacking Effort, Identity
By Cody Westerlund--
CHICAGO (CBS) -- For any true championship contender in the NBA, there are at least three key ingredients.
Talent, continuity and identity.
The Chicago Bulls have themselves plenty of individual talent. Their on-floor continuity, while learning a new system directed by rookie coach Fred Hoiberg, is the work in progress that you'd expect it to be.
Their identity? What that may be is anyone's guess.
After a 102-93 overtime loss against the Timberwolves (3-2) on Saturday evening at the United Center in which they went scoreless in the five extra minutes for the first time in franchise history and had their effort questioned by Hoiberg, the Bulls (4-3) could only muster platitudes and empty answers while shaking their heads. They couldn't hang their hats on effort, basketball smarts (18 turnovers), offensive explosiveness (35.5 percent shooting) or toughness on the defensive end (allowing 14 offensive rebounds).
"I don't know," wing Jimmy Butler said of the team's identity. "But I think we got to figure it out, what our identity could be. I think we just got to go out there and play harder at the end of the day. That's where our identity is going to start, is how hard we play on both ends of the ball.
References to the Tom Thibodeau era will grow tired quickly, if they haven't already, but nights like Saturday do nothing to help the Bulls distance themselves from the past. Under Thibodeau, the Bulls were generally regarded as a hard-nosed team that brought intensity every night, one that relied on its defense to keep it in most every game.
The intensity began to slip during the 2014-'15 campaign that would prove to be Thibodeau's last stand, one in which Chicago puzzlingly struggled against ordinary foes far too often.
That puzzle continues to befuddle them after they went 1-for-20 and scored just four points in the final 11:30 against Minnesota.
"I just don't understand how you can play with as much energy as we did the other night, two nights ago, and expect to just show up and win the game," said Hoiberg, who was visibly fed up and short with many of his responses. "It's tough to fathom how that can happen.
"I wish I could give you an answer on why that happens."
The notion that the Bulls are trying to get by on their talent, whether right or wrong, should truly insult them. It's not clear if it does.
"It's easy to correct," Butler said. "Like I said, we can never (lose sight of) how hard you have to play this game to win, against whoever it might be."
"It's not too concerning, because you got a long ways to go," Pau Gasol added. "There's plenty of opportunities to show and prove otherwise. But I think if we have high expectations, you have to prove it, you have to bring it."
In and of itself, Saturday's lackluster performance, in which the Bulls were one play away down the stretch from winning in regulation, shouldn't be taken out of context. Teams have awful shooting stretches, and the Wolves played superb defense after halftime.
The trouble is the pattern, this loss coming four nights after a humiliating 25-points defeat to the Hornets. The trouble is the form of last Dec. 30 and Jan. 7 and Feb. 25 rearing its ugly head again for the Bulls. The trouble is a fresh, respected face directing the show on the sideline and the players still responding in the same stale manner.
The trouble is the Bulls already taking questions of whether a player's-only meeting is needed. They are a mere seven games into the season.
The alarm bells are already ringing.
"We'll get tired of getting our *** whooped one day," Rose said.
Rose is probably right. The problem is no one can tell when that day may come.
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for CBSChicago.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.
