Matas Buzelis was sitting back in the chair by his locker, defending the fact that he has not hit the “rookie wall.”
“I saw you sleeping in your chair before the game,” Bulls teammate Coby White fired back with a laugh late Monday night. “You were out, bro.”
A few minutes later, and just a few feet from where the White-Buzelis debate took place, there was two-time All-Star Zach LaVine, defending the current shooting slump of White.
“There’s ups and downs throughout an NBA season,” LaVine said. “We’ll all be OK.”
Who said the Bulls don’t defend well?
But that’s what two straight losses do to a team that was overachieving through the first few months of the regular season anyway. It suddenly had players on their heels, defending their own energy or defending one another.
Buzelis dealing with the “rookie wall” was at least debatable, especially considering the level of competition the Bulls have faced the last three games with Boston twice and then the Bucks.
White’s shooting slump, however, is a real thing through the first 30 games, and especially as of late. Overall, the sixth-year guard is shooting 35.8% from three-point range, which would be his lowest since his rookie season back in the 2019-20 campaign (35.4%). More concerning is his shooting in the month of December, with White sitting at 29.3%.
White spoke about it several times the last few weeks, and wasn’t the least bit concerned. His teammates were on that same exact page.
“Coby is one of the most confident dudes I’ve played with,” LaVine said. “He’s in the gym every day. A couple shots that don’t go in or out, Coby plays hard every game. I don’t think that messes with his mindset at all. This is a guy that has had multiple 30s (point games), 40-point game before, you know.”
So is there one solid explanation of White’s slump? Not really. There seldom is for players that have a five-year consistent profile that had seemingly been on the rise.
First, it’s important to point out that White did miss two games at the start of the month dealing with an ankle injury. He’s also been dealing with cold-like symptoms that have seemingly hung over the team for weeks.
But that’s the NBA. No one feels 100% after the start of the regular season.
And White’s not the only Bulls player in a bit of a slump from three-point range the last month, as Nikola Vucevic and Lonzo Ball have each seen a dip from beyond the arc.
The other explanation that coach Billy Donovan pointed out? The new-look offensive philosophy has the Bulls playing at a pace that was much different from last year.
Donovan’s team finished the 2023-24 season ranked 28th in pace averaging 96.94 possessions per game. They entered Tuesday now third in the league at 104.48.
While individual minutes might be down from last year, the up and down the floor is way up. This is not only the fastest the Bulls have played in quite some time, but it’s the fastest some of these players have played in their entire careers.
Donovan feels there’s a learning curve to that style of play and how it affects shot making, and was confident that the numbers will course correct.
One proposition that the coach shot down when it came to White was the idea that the addition of Josh Giddey taking over the point guard duties that White grabbed last season was somehow messing with White’s scoring.
Donovan admitted that there were some rough patches early on, but they were ironed out.
“I don’t want to say growing pains,” Donovan said. “Probably more getting to know each other. That was the encouraging thing the last five or six games (before Giddey’s ankle injury) was I think Josh was really starting to make a positive trajectory because he and Coby were finding a rhythm.”
