CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Maybe it will happen in Orlando. Maybe it will have to wait until next week during a four-game home stand.
Heck, maybe it happens at lunch on Friday afternoon.
DeMar DeRozan wasn’t quite sure when it will happen, only that it will. It has to.
“We haven’t been as consistent as we’ve wanted to be, but it could take what we eat at lunch to change everything,” DeRozan said. “That’s just how I view it, and I try and give that same mindset and energy to everyone on the team.”
Seemingly no one is hearing it.
In a season of rock-bottom loss after rock-bottom loss, the Bulls followed up blowing a 21-point lead to Indiana and losing, by going into Charlotte on Thursday, and blowing a 10-point third-quarter lead in the eventual 111-96 loss to a Hornets team that had just five home wins.
“We come out good, looking like we have the right mentality the first half, and then second half everything goes to sh-t, so as leaders we’ve got to do better, I’ve got to do better,” guard Zach LaVine said. “It’s not going to change until each one of us individually comes together and says, ‘Enough.’ It’s not like we’re not trying, but it’s obviously not enough.”
No, it’s not.
And the reasons why are simple as far as Billy Donovan was concerned, with the coach pointing towards too much fouling, rebounds and turnovers. The latest culprit was the turnovers, and more specifically, untimely ones.
The changing of the momentum came in the third quarter, and of course seemed very familiar for the Bulls (22-26). Like they have in many of their meltdowns, it was the third quarter that did the Bulls in, or at least erased what was a very solid two-and-a-half quarters of work.
After an Ayo Dosunmu pull-up jumper with 5:52 left in the third stanza, the lead was 10. Not for long. A Dosunmu turnover, a missed shot by DeRozan, and an errant pass by Nikola Vucevic, and just like that the game was tied.
Then it was a dog fight the rest of the way out, and only one dog was biting, as Charlotte (14-36) outscored the visiting team 34-17 in the fourth.
Not that either team shot the lights out, but the Bulls going 4-for-26 from three-point range just wasn’t going to get it done.
Bigger picture was the Bulls have just six more games left before the NBA trade deadline, and with executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas setting the bar at a second-round playoff series back in the fall, it would seem this roster as constructed is not headed in that direction.
That’s why Donovan was asked if he felt a move needed to be made to shake up this roster.
“I believe it’s in there, and we have to figure out as coaches and players how to pull it out of each other,” Donovan said. “I’m not at a point where I can say this just can’t work. There’s too much substance of good guys that want to do the right things and care.
“We just have to be desperate. I don’t know of any other way to say it. We can’t just line-up and play, and everything is going to work itself out, and we’re going to wait for the fourth quarter and close this thing out.”
Not this season. And not when Nikola Vucevic, DeRozan, and LaVine combine to go a minus-72 in plus/minus.
What say you on the trade topic, Zach?
“Whoever is on the team, I ride with ’em,” LaVine said. “I’m not the person in the front office making the decision.
“I believe in myself and I believe in the team, whoever is on the team.”