PRESS CONFERENCES: Trash talk between Yuki Kawamura & Matas Buzelis? | CHGO Bulls

PRESS CONFERENCES: Trash talk between Yuki Kawamura & Matas Buzelis? | CHGO Bulls

Yes. You mean with medical guys you doing that tonight? Uh I’ll do that after practice. See how all those guys came out of it. But I mean everybody everybody went through practice. Everybody was fine. But I’ll probably get with those guys talk more about where they’re at in terms of all that stuff. Is it is there a chance like the back end roster guys might play like Yeah. And I think so. I think so. I mean I think like I said yesterday, you know, I I I don’t and see see you know a lot of these guys necessarily playing more than 15 to 20 minutes. I think it’s going to at least the first preseason game. Um, that being the case. So, I see us going pretty deep into the bench tomorrow. What are you kind of looking for out of this first preseason game? Well, I think the things that we’ve worked on, you know, for five days. Um, I think we’ve had five practices, you know, with one day being off. Um, just the things that we’ve tried to focus on and we still obviously want to play fast on offensively. Um, I do think, you know, being better, um, when when we do get transition taken from us, how well can we be in the half court? You know, in terms of, um, I I don’t I don’t think our team’s built in a way that we’re going to have bunch of ISO guys. We’re going to have to help each other through movement and screening. So, can we do a better job of that? Um, and then I think the things that we’ve tried to focus on, you know, defensively, you know, just more rim protection, more physicality at the point of screens. I’m going to spend a lot of time on that. Obviously, I don’t know what Cleveland will do with their rotations and things like that, but I’m probably more evaluating in terms of how well we can try to execute what we’ve done. Certainly, I know six days into this, it’s not going to be perfect, but, you know, can we at least show some signs of some growth and some improvement in those areas? And then for Noah, I know you guys are going to be fairly slow recruiting this season, but what do you want to see from him? Is there anything specific you’re looking at in terms of growth from summer league to tomorrow in the next couple of weeks? You know, I think he’s going to normally go through the the normal um learning the league. He’s going to make some mistakes. I think the biggest thing that he’s got to get, you know, better at is is from his from his waist down, you know. And what I mean by that is, you know, offensively a lot of times the ball, you know, beats his feet where he’s like a little bit off balance. You know, the traveling sometimes getting ahead of himself. Um, I think the other part for him is he’s he runs the floor very well. He’s not afraid to put his body in plays, but I think the physical part of things that are going to continue that he’s going to have to work on. And I think his feet, you know, offensively and defensively, guarding one-on-one in space, being able to handle his physicality in the game defensively. Um, those would be things that I think he needs to keep progressing at to improve upon. Beyond his physicality, what has stood out about a Coral, I’d say his IQ was really, really smart and he knows how to play. And you know, again, I and and I understand, you know, Cleveland’s team when you got Moy and you got Donovan Mitch and you got Garland. You know, he’s going to end up being when he was starting, I think he got hurt last year some, you know, that he’s not going to have the same opportunities that those guys are have. So, a lot of times he’s a recipient of the ball finding him, so to speak, right? But I think he’s a very good cutter. He’s a very good mover. I think with the fact that we’re not going to have a team that can really ISO. We’re going to have to util utilize cutting and moving. He’s good at that. He’s physical driver. I think he’s a good transition player. But the thing that stands out the most to me is, you know, I think one of the things that happens with younger players is they have no idea who they are as a player. He knows exactly. He knows who he is. He knows what his strengths are and he knows what his job is and what he needs to do. That’s what really, you know, stands out to me. Does his cutting ability remind you at all? It’s different because a lot of it is like like back cutting. I mean, they’re both very very good cutters, but he kind of does it in a different way. You know, a lot of it is he’s slashing to the basket. Where Kevin, a lot of that stuff’s on the perimeter moving and cutting for shots and getting himself into open space. Isaac does it more at the rim. You know, where guys lose vision, he sneaks in, he can get a layup or he sneaks in and offensive rebounds. He’s just got a good awareness of when and where to cut to. How has he affected the other players on the team with his dynamic defensive ability? Listen, he’s been really really good. Um, and I’ve always had great respect for him. I think, you know, with the amount of times that we’ve played against Cleveland here in Chicago, feel like I got a pretty good idea who who who he is, you know, as a player. But I think you really never know until you start working with somebody. But I think he’s made a huge impact on our team. He’s very very physical. He’s obviously an elite defender. I think everybody goes to the shooting piece with him, which, you know, maybe he hasn’t been this elite, you know, three-point shooter, but I think if you look at him throughout his career, he’s gotten better in that area, but he takes the right shots. He takes good shots. He takes shots that he knows he can make, but he impacts the game other ways. Like, he’s on the offensive glass. As I mentioned to Casey, he’s a really good cutter. He gets out in transition, he can guard multiple positions. He’s very, very physical in the post defens defensively. He’s physical in pick and roll coverages. There’s just a lot of things I think he brings to our table that really stand out. Things that, you know, maybe in the past we’ve been lacking a little bit. With the physicality, Billy, how much of that is like just kind of innate that guys have versus something that you can actually improve on? There there’s some of that. Like for example, like even with the charges, we do these drills and doesn’t necessarily always need to end in a charge, but the same guys figure out how to take charges, right? Like Isaac does a really good job. Trey Jones is really good at it. You know, we almost stopped practice and sent everybody home. mile got a charge today which is really really good so I was happy but guys are really trying in in a good way but there are guys like Kyle Lowry has always been good at that his whole entire career every year Kyle Lowry is one of the best guys in the league taking charges there is a skill and a knack to that you know uh Isaac is he’s been a physical player since he’s been in the league some of that stuff does come natural I think the guys that lack maybe strength or size or bulk it takes them a little bit of time to figure out how to utilize their body and I’ve kind of said this for I think as a staff we’ve got to help them with some of that stuff. So, we try to put guys in situations where they’re having I’m not talking about like fighting over pick and rolls, but like two-on-one fast breaks where there’s one guy back and you got to break the play up, right? Like lunging for a steal and jumping out of the way or avoiding the contact, it doesn’t do anything. You know, kind of put them on an island where they’ve got to make some decisions to put their bodies in play. Um, and we got to help them because, you know, like like I said, some guys just do it. It It’s natural to them. They’re really good at it. And there’s other guys that need some help. I think everybody’s capable of. I think we’ve taken probably more charges in six days than we took in 82 games, which has been encouraging. Now, whether or not they can transfer over to tomorrow will be important, but that’s for we have to do that stuff to gain extra possessions, right? We got to try to get to the glass a little bit more to gain more possessions. We’ve not been a team that forces a lot of turnovers. I don’t know if that’s really going to change. I do think we can get more active with our hands, loose balls, jump ball situations, like those possessions. We’ve got to find a way to come up with more of them, you know, as as as a group because, you know, the the rim is got to be important. I think one of the things that flipped for us in the second half of the season after the All-Star break was, you know, we were given up about five extra rim attempts um from from our opponent and that flipped and we ended up getting like two extra rim shots. So, like those are things I think stylistically we got to get better at. Um like I said, we don’t we’re going to have to, you know, to attack the paint, we’re going to have to do it collectively. We’re just not going to be able to sit with a guy at the ball in his hands and just stand there in space and just let him go and he’s like we’re going to have to get downhill through movement, screening, running in transition, those kind of things. And just going back to your physicality, you know, question, a lot of that is the physicality. It’s not only the physical confrontation. It’s also the physical endurance to run and and and continually to realize you got 24 seconds to use the clock to to have the stamina and endurance to try to keep cutting and creep keep moving and try to break down the defense. We’re going to have to play like that. And defensively, how much can like uh more physicality at the point of the, you know, ball screen or point of attack help kind of remove some of that rim pressure? Yes. I mean, I think that’s where it all starts. You know, I think everybody looks at the rim numbers. Generally, the rim becomes a problem, not at the rim, but prior to that, right? It’s one-on-one defense, guy gets blown by. It’s the point of the screen where you can’t blow up the pick and roll and then all of a sudden the ball’s downhill after pick and roll, right? Or it’s somebody coming off of some kind of screening action and we get screened and we’re late and the ball’s coming down. That’s generally what happens. So, your rim defense to me always starts on the perimeter. If those perimeter things break down, it’s really hard. Now, with that being said, we’re not going to be perfect. no team is. And you’re going to have situations where the ball is coming downhill. That’s where we got to start putting our body in play, taking charges, going vertical, coming over there and helping and being better at the rim when we do have breakdowns cuz everybody’s playing the game to get downhill, right? Cuz you get to the rim, it’s more offensive rebounds, it’s more free throws, it’s more kick out threes. When that ball gets into the restricted area, that’s where every team on offense wants the ball, right? It’s the highest percentage shot in the game. It generally leads to corner threes and it generally leads to fouls and it generally leads to offensive rebounds. Right? So when you look at our offensive rebounding, some of it is we don’t really get to the paint a lot, but we also got to do a better job going. Right? There’s a direct correlation between how much you crash, what’s your crash rate, and how many offensive rebounds you come up with. Right? So if you look at those things that I just mentioned, we were really at the bottom of the league in my opinion. If we can make a flip in a year like we did offensively with the transition getting up and down the way we did, we got to flip some of those. Not to say we’re all going to be number one, but we can’t be at the bottom. We’re going to have to find ways that we’re not getting outsh shot every game where teams are getting four or five extra shots and they’re getting four or five extra shots at the rim and then we’re not getting to the free throw line at a high rate and we’re not offensive rebounding. Like those those measurables are really really really hard to overcome even if we shoot the ball great. Like we had the 13th best effective field goal percentage last year and the 11th best effective field goal percentage on defense, right? But we our offense and our defense was in the 20s. So it’s not all about shooting the basketball. It’s about the other things that I think these younger guys need to understand are the controllables. And I’ve always said this like 95% of the game the balls play without the ball in your hands. What are you doing to impact the game? What are you doing to generate extra possessions and and create easy baskets? So for the preseasons, what kind of exper experiments would you like to play out on the rotation? I’m not really worried about that right now just because I think one there’ll be some guys on when I say minute restrictions. Not because of an injury, just more as a ramp up going into the preseason, right? So we’re going to have a lot of different combinations out there. To me, this game for us is more what have we practiced the last 5 days? Can we see if we can do some of those things against an opponent instead of doing it against ourselves? What kind of growth do we need to make coming out of this basketball game? I think as we start to get closer to, you know, the first game, you can start to look at that. But tomorrow, it’s about how can we play to our identity? And like, listen, I I think in the first half, there’ll probably be, you know, maybe 10 or 11 guys will play in the first half would be my guess, and then there’ll be some guys taken off the floor after the half, and some of the guys that were on the bench in the first half will get much more of an opportunity. So, I look at it as a game for the totality of our team. You know, probably a lot of guys playing minutes and just seeing how well we can sustain an identity that we’ve tried to create. Thanks a lot, Billy. Okay, guys. What is that experience going to be like, not only going back there, but playing against some of your friends? Yeah. Uh, I don’t really know. I don’t know how I’m going to feel about it. Um, I think once I get there and we’re able to just shoot around, be able to be on the court back there again and uh see them. I think it I don’t know how I’m going to feel. Um, of course I miss those guys. You know, those are my brothers. I play with them five years, but uh like once the game starts, you know, like not really think about that. Yeah. Yeah. I know it’s just a preseason game, but some people view getting traded as like, oh, that’s the enemy. I got to go at those guys. I mean, is that is that kind of your view or you kind of look at as like, I had a great five years there, now this is a new opportunity. Uh, yeah, it’s a new opportunity here. Um, of course, I’m on I’m going at anything. I don’t care if it’s Cleveland. I don’t care whoever we’re playing against, I’m going at them. So, um, it’s not just because I got traded from them going at him. Like, I take pride in what I do and whoever is going against us, I’m going straight at you. Billy was just telling us that one thing that stands out about you beyond your physicality, which we’ve already talked about, is your IQ out there. Is that kind of always who you’ve been as a player? He said you know exactly who you are and you play within that, you know, construct. Is that kind of always who you’ve been as a player? Yeah, exactly who I am. I I know what my strengths and weaknesses are on the court. Um, I know like cutting, um, finding my teammates, hitting open shots, um, just doing everything that I know is going to help the team win. Uh, I’m not out there just to do the stuff that I know are not my strengths. In that time that you spent in Cleveland, what do you feel was the area or maybe a few areas where you grew the most on and off the court just in that time? Uh, I think just learning from the vets that were there and also just like their leadership styles. Um, of course, learning the IQ of the game. Um, just learning how to play within the game. Also, just how knowing how to take care of your body, knowing like it’s 82 game season plus, you know, playoffs. So, just knowing how to take care of your body from start to finish. Who was your bet your rookie year or a couple year? My rookie year, I had a lot of vets. Uh, a lot of I think went from like Drummond to Jabelle McGee, Kevin Love was there. I think Larry N was there. I mean, it was a lot of people in my rookie year. So, uh, it’s just a lot of people to, um, you know, pick stuff from. You know, Kevin, he was the finals from Cleveland all those years. So, just picking his brain about certain things. How much different is like schematically this defense going to be from when you were in Cleveland? You got two elite rim protectors there. Not so much the case here. More of an emphasis on containing at the perimeter. How much is your role with all that? Uh, I mean, it’s pretty much the same. I mean, in Cleveland, I I was still the point of attack defender. I was still guarding the best perimeter guys, offensive guys. So, I mean, it’s it’s the same here. Still being physical, still taking the challenge every single night, guarding the best guys, and uh just help helping the team whatever way they want me to help. But without sort of that safety net of a lead protection, um does that like doesn’t change anything for you in terms of the way that you need to sort of handle some of those matchups? I mean, I feel like we do have a lead from protection. I feel like even during training camp, guys like Rof, Zack, and Jaylen, they’ve been I I’ve seen them get better every single day with being physical, being vertical on their jumps, getting block shots, even taking charges. So, um I feel like the bigs on this team like they’ve been stepping it up. Do you do any uh did you do any like scouting work on Billy Donovan when you got traded? Like asking anybody what it was like playing at home or you just kind of come in and kind of form your own opinion? Uh, I mean, yeah. I mean, I asked some of the players, um, like I did Billy coach and uh, there’s like he’s he’s a player’s coach. Um, he really respects veteran guys. So, so that was like the number one, you know, best thing I could hear is that he respects, you know, my input on things like how I run guard guys, what I see on offense and, uh, kind of take that. So, you obviously have an impression of him as an opponent when you’re playing against him. What has it been like kind of working with him from training camp? Uh, it’s been great. It’s been great. Like I said, he’s me and him are talking daily um just about certain things. Like you know me, I’m still catching up on our offensive schemes, the defensive schemes as you know this year’s going on right now and you know he just been there to help me out and also take input on what I think might help this team on the defensive side and things that I’ve done in the past that help me become a great defender. What are you most excited to see out of these preseason games just to kind of like figure out about your teammates? What are you most interested in? Uh just our togetherness on the court, just being able to play with each other, move the ball. Um and also like I think defense is the number one thing for us this year. So just seeing how we guard, you know, these teams that were playing in the preseason that’s what we our first game against Detroit regular season. So just taking from the start with Cleveland, seeing how we guard um them from the start and how much physicality we got. Are you still have news media following you yet? I’m good. Okay. I love it. I love it. I’m sure I appreciate their support, you know. Corbin, are you ready? Yes, I am. Uh, what’s training camp been like for you so far? Uh, so far so good. You know, like we our practice is practice is going good. Uh, we’ve been uh building like our chemistry and our relationship uh with each other, you know. Uh I’m still learning what I need to do to impact winning, you know. Uh yeah, I think it like Yeah, it’s so so far so good, you How how does this compare to Memphis? Is it similar? Is it different? Uh I feel I feel very similar, you know. Uh like especially offensive system, you know, like when get the rebound, like we like both team like focus on the transition offense, you know. Uh when get the rebounds, everybody sprint the corner, everybody sprint the rim, uh push the ball, kick ahead, uh sometimes use a drag screen. Uh I think like I feel, you know, it it fits me, you know. Um, I love the system, you know. That’s why, you know, like it didn’t take it didn’t take me a long time to adjust uh to booze offense, you know. What was it kind of like for you coming out of summer league? Obviously, you played well for the Bulls, but then getting the two-way opportunity. What was that uh experience like for you? You know, I feel like uh I feel like uh prove my prove myself uh during a summer league to get two-way contract. So, I’m so excited for opportunity to keep proving myself uh this season. Uh like summer league is first experience for me. Uh it was great. Uh and you know, like I’m so excited. Yeah. Now that now that you have the contract, what other goals do you have for this season? Uh I just want to contribute to uh I just want to contribute to the team anyway I can, you know. Uh I have to I have to be consistent with my performance with my play no matter if uh I’m in the NBA or G. Yes. You know uh like my goal is main get get main contract you know contract one day but like I just want to focus right now you know I just want to focus um I just want to focus uh contribute to the team you know. How did you get along with your new teammates and how did you build that relationship in the camp? Oh, you know like they are so friendly. So, you know, uh I love my teammate. You know, of course, I miss uh Memphis like Grizzy’s people, but you know, I’m so satisfied right now. So, we got great teammate. Uh we got great uh team staff. Um I think yeah, you know, it’s it’s going to be great season for us. What kind of supports that did you receive from Japan? Say it again. What kind of supports did you receive from Japan? So you know uh that’s how you know um say again what what like what kind of a support stat did you receive from your home country? Oh like you know uh I truly appreciate uh their support. Uh I couldn’t have I I’m here. I I’m I’m in the NBA. So I I couldn’t have done it uh without them. So I just want to I just want to you know I just want to uh meet expectation from um uh from coaches, from my teammate, from my fans. You know I do my best. Do you expect to get some playing time tomorrow night? Hopefully. Yeah. I I don’t know. I’m not sure. But like you know uh if I’m playing uh like tomorrow uh yeah I do my best you know. Yeah. Yuki who have uh who have you been playing with in some of the scrimmages and anybody stand out? I’m impressed by Mis you know uh Maurice uh he he’s very talented. Uh sometimes you know trash talk with me but definitely he starts it every time you know. I don’t start you know I’m very competitive you know that’s why uh in the heat of a moment it happened you know um but like yeah you know he he’s very good uh he’s very talented uh he had he has bright future uh he’s going to be great great he’s going to be great great player you know soon how do you answer his trash talking it’s not good for TV you know sometimes F something like that. Yeah. But right now I I can’t I cannot say right now. Yeah. Sorry. I’m so sorry. Okay. Would you be surprised if he said that you started? He said that. He kind of said that. No, he he he was lying. He was lying. I never start. He He starts every time, you know. But I’m very competitive. It’s I I I’m enjoy not serious, you know. Thank you.

Billy Donovan, Issac Okoro, and Yuki Kawamura meet with the media following day 4 of Chicago Bulls training camp. How will Issac Okoro use an “underdog mentality” to thrive in Chicago? Why was Yuki Kawamura and Matas Buzelis jawing during practice? And how has Donovan seen the physicality breaking through?

0:00 Billy Donovan
11:47 Isaac Okoro
16:28 Yuki Kawamura

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