PRESS CONFERENCE: Coby White Injury Update, Billy Donovan on Bulls Players Buying In

PRESS CONFERENCE: Coby White Injury Update, Billy Donovan on Bulls Players Buying In

probably uh working with medical to make sure that we we keep these guys somewhat fresh going into this back to back. I think uh looking at um the loads out of the the last two games, the travel going into a back to back. I mean, we got a I think a good amount of work done. Um you know, we watched film and then it was probably 40 45 minutes of just kind of going through defense and then, you know, scripting and working on, you know, offense. But we just didn’t get up and down and there was wasn’t really any contact. It was more probably teaching and scripting and and and detail work. Got it. What was Kobe able to do? Kobe didn’t do anything today in practice. Uh not that he couldn’t. He’s going to work out after this with some of the PD guys. So, he’s still on the same exact schedule he was that I mentioned to you before the uh Philly game. Uh the hope is uh you know that we got that 3-day window I think coming out of the San Antonio game. One of those days will be a contact practice without question and that would be the one that we would hope that he would get back into. What about he did everything today in terms of running feels pretty good. Um I think like I said before the Philly game, I think he’s gotten progressively better. Uh we didn’t have any contact today. Seems uh there was no limit restrict him on practice. He was able to ring down to everything that we did today. So we’ll see where he’s at after it. But uh I know he wants to play. who’s eager to play. Um, but like I said, I think I think I don’t I don’t think it’s anything long term. I think it’s day by day. I was curious just speaking of IO, the difference between the second mix game and last game was I feel like there was a lot more room pressure for the new guards. I know it’s difficult when you’re not able to have the two guards out there that you said you wanted to, but what did you see in terms of just the against Philly? You mean versus New York? Exactly. I think certainly it was a point of emphasis. Uh, you know, for us, um, I I think we have to play like that. I think I said after the New York game, I didn’t feel like from an identity standpoint, right? Like New York scored more points than we did in transition. They probably attacked the paint better than we did in the half court. Um, you know, they they did all the things necessary to win the game. And that was kind of the emphasis going into Philly of, you know, when we had paint touches is a huge difference in what our shooting numbers look like when there’s no paint touch. So the importance of not that we have to get there and shoot it, but we’ve got to make good decisions and be able to spray the ball out, but when we get too perimeter orientated where we’re not penetrating and breaking the defense down, it’s not good. And I think some of that can be attributed to we didn’t have a lot of potential assists. I didn’t think the ball moved like it normally had most of the year and it was just a game where if you want to use the word step back, we didn’t play to our identity, whatever word it is. We just didn’t do the things that we have to do to be really competitive. I’m a not a police guy. A little bit. You are right now. You asking a question? Well, I mean because Jordan like Pippen never came off the court, you know, blah blah blah. But like you but you’ve been saying you don’t like Josh’s load and now you have your first back to back of the season. So how do you navigate that? Obviously, if I was back, that’ll help. That would help if I was going back. You know, one of the things that I tried to do, you know, to be honest with you, I didn’t like where Trey’s minutes were getting. Uh, and tried to pull him back a little bit. Um, in the Philly game from where he was in the New York game. Josh, I pulled back a little bit. It wasn’t by much. Um, we’re kind of hamstrung a little bit with Kobe and IO being out. So some of it is what I try to do with Josh was maybe not so much those long long stints of 10 minutes. Certainly the guys playing well in that stint you may do it but it was more try to get Trey and him in and out and keep them fresh. I you know Josh has got really good stamina and endurance but for him to keep up that load and the and the work that he’s doing on both ends of the court playing the number of minutes he’s playing that’s really hard to sustain that I think. So if if the numbers do get to 35, 36, 37, you know, in a particular game and we know we have to do that going into a particular game, it may be, you know, shorter stints, quicker rests, you know, take him out after five or 6 minutes, let him rest for two, put him back in and handle him that way cuz he recovers pretty quickly. They already asked IO, but as far as the guys who are traveling, is Io traveling? Yeah. Oh yeah, he’ll be traveling. Is Noah traveling? No will be traveling. Okay. Just I I wonder with this sort of start from this group of guys you have. Obviously you’ve been you’ve been in the NBA so long now that people probably think of you as an NBA guy even with your college success. Like what have you learned about what it sort of takes to get guys to buy in in the league with professionals? Yeah. I don’t you know I I think I’ve been really fortunate with the guys that I’ve had the opportunity to coach. I think the buyin part to me starts well before practice ever starts, right? You know, it was like last year. You know, you’re sitting there looking at your team on paper and you have Zack Lavine and you got Kobe White and you got Lonzo Ball and you got IO and you just traded for Josh Giddy and you’ve got all these guards, right? Someone’s got to sacrifice. So, these are conversations I think you have have beforehand. you know, even the guys that you know, you know, would be like multi-year allstars, you know, whether it’s been Vu or Dear or Zach, those guys have always been unbelievable to work with. And I think those veteran guys, they have a a picture and understanding and knowing what goes into the winning part, but you’ve got to come to a universal agreement of how we the group has to play, right? And so last year when we talked about playing a lot faster, you’re having conversations with Vuch about that. You’re talking to Zach about that when you’re talking about having multiple ball handlers. You’re talking to Josh, you’re talking to Kobe and you know, you’re saying this is what we have to do when I can’t have one guy with the ball in their hands all the time. You can’t have one guy that’s just going to be a high usage player. We’ve got to do that. And you know what? We were able to flip it. And and some of the buyin to me last year was really, really powerful because those guys went from the year prior to really not playing very fast to being the fastest team in the league. And that’s more a tribute to those guys, I think, buying into how we needed to play. Um, I always feel like I’ve been fortunate when you when you’re straight up and you you talk to a player one-on-one and you know what, like you’re not going to always agree, but you do come to an agreement of how the how you need to play and what the identity needs to be, you know, and I’ve been fortunate that the guys I’ve worked with here have been incredibly great to work with. Definitely. What’s the plan? What’s the plan for Noah with the G-League starting this weekend? He’s not hasn’t played yet for you guys. What’s uh is he gonna get a lot of time in Windy City or what is Yeah, I think I mean I think that would be the plan. We have a month mapped out for him. When he can get back with us, he’ll get back with us when he can get down. The biggest issue with the Windy City situation from from our perspective of his development, you know, is really more predicated on the fact that it’s really hard to take a guy and put him in a just a G-League game. like he misses shoot around, misses practices, shows up for the game, and he’s just out there playing. Like he needs to understand like who he’s playing with on the G-League team, you know, developing a chemistry of bond there, going through shootounds, understanding scatter reports, game preparation, what they’re doing. So, we’ll when he goes down there, we want him to be down there to be able to experience those things, not just playing in games. You’re talking about the buy in a second ago. Uh how pleased were you? I know you talked about this the other night a little bit about resetting at halftime the other night after three bad halves where the team kind of got away from what you would like them to do in terms of intensity, physicality, effort. Yeah, man. We addressed it at halftime. Um, and you know, it was it was it was quite honestly it was two games in a row. You know, it was a New York game and we had moments where we tried to get back in the game a little bit but we just didn’t do enough. And then certainly that first half against Philly, you know, I felt like they drove through us. They really hurt us on the the offensive glass. Maxi really got going. So you couple Maxis and and beat going offensively coupled with the fact that they’re hurting us on the offensive glass. We’re shooting it just okay. That’s why you get down by 20 points. So, you know, for us, we don’t have the luxury not to do those things. We have to do those things. And those things to me are controllable. We can control what kind of shots we generate. We can control, you know, how hard we go to crash the offensive glass. We can control how hard we run back in transition. We can control turnovers. Um, we can’t control the ball going in on the basket and we can do a really good job contesting on Maxi or Embiid and they still can make the shots like that’s out of our control. But we didn’t do those things, you know, and I thought in the second half we did. And you know, we spent a lot of time watching film on those plays that you’re talking about where we’ve got to we have to do that. Like I can I’m not saying if we do that, we’re going to win every single game. But I know if we don’t do them, we have no chance. So that’s just a starting point competitively for us. We’ve got to be able to do that. We got to move the ball, share the ball on offense. We got to run. We got to take care of it. We got to get to the offensive glass. And then how well can we get back in transition and communicate and talk and play with some physicality, you know? A Cororo’s done an unbelievable job. He’s third in the NBA right now in charges taken. We need some other guys to step up and take some more charges, too. Now, our team, I think, right now, is top five in charges taken in the league. It’s not a obviously a huge number, but it’s on our guys’ mind. They’re trying to do it. So, I think the guys have done a really good job of trying to do those things, but it’s a lot. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of effort, a lot of concentration, a lot of focus. And we can’t have lapses in that area. You know, we may have a lapse in execution. We may turn the ball over. We may miss a screen, but you can’t have lapses, I think, in the effort and the energy. The the measuring six never stop as you go through the course of the season, but now going up against two division rivals on the road, how curious are you to see against these teams you’re familiar with? Yeah. Well, I I think you know, you look at our schedule and the standings right now, and I know it’s early, but you know, Philly came in and, you know, they were 5-1 like we were, and we’re fortunate to win the game. Then you come back on a back to back where you have Cleveland and Milwaukee who are just right below us. Then you come back home and you end up playing San Antonio and then you go play Detroit. So just take a look at where those teams are in the standings right now. Right? If we come out like we did against New York and come out like we did against the start of the game against Philly, it’s going to be those teams are really really good and we’re going to have to be able to, you know, play play play to that energy level. We just have to. How are you feeling physically right now? kind of just you update us on what the last couple weeks have been like for you. Uh I feel good physically. Um no setbacks. So um I’ve been running a lot and a lot and a lot. Uh so it’s been good. Just trying to make sure I’m staying condition. So I’ve been pushing it um a lot uh just to build a tolerance in my calf. So um and it’s been good. So Billy has kind of described to us what happened the last time that they kind of lengthened the reevaluation period. Yeah. Just describe to us in as many details as you feel comfortable sharing just kind of what happened. Like I I just practiced and I probably practiced a little too long and I felt some symptoms. So it uh it wasn’t a restraint or anything like that. It was just like a minor setback. So this time they wanted me to just be like a little longer um build my tolerance for my calf a little longer uh rehab. So do you have a target date? No, I don’t have a target date, but uh um you know, West Coast trip around that week when we got five and seven. Uh so around that week is like um what I’ve been told. Uh but I don’t have like a target date, you know. Billy said probably at this time next week when you have that 3-day window is going to try to push it in practice. Yeah. So I should practice be able to practice next week. Uh so um I’m back playing three on three, two on two, playing live and stuff. So, it’s just the schedule, the way the schedule is. We got so many games in this time per period that it’s not going to be a lot of time to practice until next week. So, I should be able to hop in now. Two on two three on three. Is that just different just with PB? Is that with the guys? Like, who’s that with uh mixture of both? Just because they still got games and stuff, too. So, I basically, you know, you just got to figure out ways days to get it in. What’s it like for you walking that fine line between excitement over what the team is doing and probably wanting to get back in there and join in on the fun? Yeah. No, I mean I’m very excited to get back obviously uh you know just the way the team playing uh we playing for each other and it’s exciting so for me but you know you still got to stay patient at the same time and you don’t want to rush anything and um so the team is doing really well so um I’m excited to get back but I’m also it’s very fun watching them play too with that Billy was just saying that you guys have had sort of the conversations with the way the team has started and he’s saying that he emphasizes to you that he wants you to give yourself grace like how are you sort approaching the understanding that you’re coming on to a moving train and team started so well, but you want to obviously get back to who you are and fit into that. Uh I think um I mean I think the way I play fits perfectly with the way that we play. So quick decisions. I’m not a ball stopper. I don’t hold the ball like uh you know I just play to win. So I mean I don’t see no problem or anything like that when it comes to me getting back to it. It’s just terms of like finding a rhythm playing again. I haven’t played in a long time and couple months. for just finding my rhythm and being being patient with myself when I, you know, do miss a couple shots and stuff like that. You giving yourself grace. What does that look like? Uh, just he knows me and coach got a good a great relationship when we’re super close and he knows how hard I am on myself to go out there and perform at a certain level every night, no matter if I’ve been playing or if I haven’t been playing. Uh, and I I think that he just wants me to, you know, obviously it’s going to take time to get back in rhythm because I haven’t really played. So, he just want wants me to focus on that and just like don’t be too hard on myself. Have you had soft tissue injuries like this before that have held you out this long? Not this long. No, this is the first time. I mean, I strained my groin before. Uh, but nothing this long. So, uh, this is the first time I ever had a injury really to help me out this long besides when I had shoulder surgery. So, is there any sort of frustration with how long it takes you like ramp up and tightness back? Yeah. No, it’s definitely frustration because it’s something that’s like it’s just different for me. I never experienced a soft tissue injury like this. So, uh, like for me, most of the time I hurt, I’m hurt. Like I’m big on like, all right, I do this, I do this, I check this box, check this box, and I’ll be back on this date. And when this one is more so like you got to build strength. You got to, you know, be cognizant of what’s how are you feeling all the time and on the court. So, but I’ve been feeling great. So, uh, these past couple weeks. So, the original injury that was in Miami, right? That was like, was it early? It was in it was in August. Yeah. Like early or late. Do you remember? Uh, mid August. Yeah. It was right before Miami. We went to Miami at the end of August. What do you think of the team started? Why is Patrick Williams standing there? Uh, I mean, obviously the team starter has been great, right? Like we’re uh number one in the East right now. Uh, I think we have a, like I said, a really good team. Nobody probably nobody picked us to be where we’re at right now. Uh, so like I said, like we’re just confident in ourselves and we’re confident in each other and we come out there every night to play to win. And we got a team full of guys that’s that’s really good basketball players. I can’t tell you why Pat is standing there. I don’t know. He’s been standing a good time. Yeah. Like he he making sure, you know what I’m saying? Big bro straight. You know what I’m saying? Do you know how to use the walkie-talkies that you’ve been stealing from the PR staff? No, I don’t. Beth won’t teach me and Nor turn it on for me to use. Just knowing the play style, you’ve been here last couple years and obviously our personnel is a lot different, but just the work that it’s taken for y’all to sort of get into this. Can you kind of just speak to what this transformation the past few years for y’all to sort of develop this play style and really kind of perfecting is kind of coming to fruition this year. Yeah, I think like I like everything every other thing in life like it’s going to take time, right? Like you can’t you can’t flip a switch, you know, like building a culture takes time. Building the way you want to play takes time, building an identity takes time. like and and I think like you said the past couple years we’ve been working towards this and then you know this year it it it’s starting to come into fruition on the court and and in games and you know this didn’t happen overnight. This just didn’t happen this training camp. It happened two years ago you know that training camp and then that season and then you know over time you slowly start to play the way that you want to play and you got guys that buy in to how we want to play and what we want to do and then you get the personnel that fits how we want to play and what we want to do. Um and then yeah, like you said, everything just comes to fruition. You know, uh obviously it’s a long season. We only play how many seven games. So, um we’re we’re humble, but we’re also hungry at the same time. Um and we continue to just take it day by day like Ice always say and uh get better. So, I know it’s it’s kind of a different um style. Yeah, that’s Isaac. Ice. Yeah, that’s what that’s his nickname, Ice. I know it’s not like everything’s not the same from 2122 when you guys got off to that hot start, but do you feel like there are parallels there in terms of like the chemistry and and how well you guys are playing? Yeah, I think the chemistry and the vibe just like us being close as a team. Uh, obviously the play style is drastically different. Uh, the personnel is drastically different. Um, but this is still exciting. It’s still fun and everybody’s, you know, like I said, we we we got a good vibe going on around the team right now and uh we’re all together. So, um, it’s fun. Obviously, I haven’t been out there, but for me, just watching from the bench, it’s been super fun and exciting, especially, you know, the the win we had against uh the Sixers. So, um it’s been fun. You you mentioned the personnel a couple times. Is this kind of this roster, is this the most suited you guys have been to play this play style as far as personnel? Yeah, I mean, I think so. I think just having guys that, you know, first of all, younger guys that that’s athletic that get out and run and that play, you know, a certain type of way. Um, no, and that’s no knock on, you know, guys that was here in the past. That’s, uh, that, you know, they’re obviously, you know, Debo is a Hall of Famer. You know, Zach’s one of the best talent, probably the most talented player I ever been around. Uh, but I feel like that, you know, coach does a good job of adapting to the personnel and putting in a system that works for who he has on the team and that’s what he’s been doing. So, and what have you sort of seen from from Josh’s these first couple weeks and and what he’s meant to sort of really establish the way you guys want to play? Yeah, I mean he’s playing at an unbelievable level, all-star level for sure. Uh I always told him since he first got here, he could really average a triple double if he wanted to. Every single night he can go out there and get that. Uh but it’s been he’s he’s obviously an important part of what we do. Uh pushing the pace, setting the tone, getting downhill, getting to the paint, making it easier for everybody else on the court. Um he’s been doing it at an exceptionally high level. So I’m like I said, I told him the other night, I’m just it’s been I’ve been proud to watch him, you know, happy for him. You know, everything that he’s been through throughout his career and everything he’s had to deal with. um and still being himself, being true to himself, and then coming out and playing the way that he’s playing, proving a lot of people wrong. So, you always got to love stories like that. Was there has there been concern? Was it concern about your Achilles during going through this rehab or is it more of a like upper in the calf? Nah, nah. No Achilles stuff because like um I’m my calf is very strong like through testing and strong. Uh, and then when I get like we they always do like uh tendon scanning and when I do my Achilles and my tendon scanning uh it looks uh it’s in the green so it’s very healthy. Uh so they really said I’m not I mean you can’t not knock not like you know what I’m saying it’s basketball injuries going to happen but they said I’m not in that zone of of danger in terms of and then my my calf was a minor strain. It wasn’t like a serious strain like a grade three or anything like that. So uh just real quick do y’all this is a NBA cup game. I know you felt sore, but do y’all y’all been talking about the NBA cup going to Vegas? Has that been a goal? Uh, we ain’t really talked about that. Yeah, we ain’t really talked about that to be honest. Uh, I mean, when we play who we played in the cup game first. Nicks. Knicks. Yeah. When we played them, I mean, we put an emphasis on this a cup game like you know this game means you know, but I mean I think we like I always say like coach the way he is, the way he coach, he approach every game the same way. His competitive nature is always on on 10. So, uh, he he approach every game like it’s game seven.

Chicago Bulls Head Coach Billy Donovan and guard Coby White speak following Bulls practice on Thursday. Donovan gives an update on Ayo Dosunmu, and answers questions about the team’s rim protection and managing heavier minutes for Josh Giddey and Tre Jones. White offers an update on his recovery from the calf injury, and believes he’ll fit right into the team’s growing chemistry when he returns to the court.

0:00 BILLY DONOVAN
10:47 COBY WHITE

#chicagobulls #nba #bullsnation