It’s hard to escape the most popular buzzword around the Advocate Center this season.

Physicality is all the Chicago Bulls talk about. Every player — from starting guard Josh Giddey to backup center Jalen Smith — entered the season with the primary focus of adopting a confrontational style of play. It’s a necessity after recent seasons in which the Bulls essentially were bodied off the court in regular-season and elimination games alike.

The Bulls need to be the toughest team on the court — something they accomplished in Wednesday’s win over the Detroit Pistons. But that game was only the first in a series of tests against the most rugged teams in the Eastern Conference, including Saturday’s road game against the Orlando Magic and an NBA Cup matchup Oct. 31 against the New York Knicks.

The Bulls’ defensive success starts and ends with mentality. Sure, there are systems and schemes that can put a team in a better position to rotate or contest at the rim. But for the Bulls, playing hard is simply a choice to be made at the beginning, middle and end of every play.

“It’s just a decision,” Smith said. “It’s on the whole team just deciding to defend. It’s all about decisions — deciding to make that impact.”

Coach Billy Donovan is realistic about the Bulls as a defensive unit. The team doesn’t have many stoppers — individual defenders who can pick up solo assignments and shut down stars — outside of newcomer Isaac Okoro.

Members of the young core such as Matas Buzelis, Ayo Dosunmu and even Patrick Williams have the potential to elevate their defense. But the bulk of the Bulls’ shot-stopping efforts have to be approached as a unit.

So Donovan didn’t seek a convoluted solution on defense. Instead, he focused on simple fixes rooted in the basic fundamentals. Win the boards. Prevent second-chance opportunities. Draw charges. Make anything and everything hard.

“It always comes down to the physical confrontation of having to put your body in plays,” Donovan said. “That’s really what it comes down to. You’re going to go through scouting and you know they’ll go through scouting against us. But there is no scouting involved to — how well can we block out? How well can we go rebound?”

Wednesday’s win wasn’t a defensive master class, but it showcased how this heightened effort can tighten the margins for a weaker defensive team. The Bulls won the boards 50-46, including 30-15 in the first half. They limited the Pistons to five second-chance points, drew a charge on Cade Cunningham, forced 17 deflections and contested 47 of the Pistons’ 87 shots.

Photos: Chicago Bulls open season at home with 115-111 win over Detroit Pistons

Some nights, the Bulls will do all this and it still won’t work. That’s the thing about an effort-based approach. The Bulls won’t always be able to outhustle their opponent to a win over a high-powered offense stuffed with talent.

But that’s not the point. If the Bulls want to fix their outcomes, they have to begin with a consistent approach.

“We may go to the glass and get blocked out, but we’ve got to come again,” Donovan said. “There’s a relentlessness to that. A lot of it is habitual. You have to develop those habits. Sometimes when guys are really talented, they can get away with that. But when you get to the NBA and talent is neutralized, there’s got to be separating factors that you can bring to the table.”

The greatest challenge for this new defensive mentality is fatigue — mental and physical.

It’s one thing to outmuscle a team for a quarter. Harder to sustain for a full game. Even harder to hold up for an entire season. Longevity will rely on individual buy-in within each game, a fact the Bulls have continued to harp upon in the locker room.

“Everybody knows,” Buzelis said. “Everybody’s on the same page.”

On Wednesday night, that was true. The result was a win. Step 1, complete.

On to Step 2 — and the 80 after that.

Originally Published: October 23, 2025 at 5:22 PM CDT