MIAMI – Billy Donovan was an underrated defender back in his days at Providence.
There was more than a glimpse of that on Tuesday, as the Bulls coach defended the hell out of Zach LaVine.
The Sun-Times reported that according to a source, there was a half-time incident during the embarrassing loss in Minnesota in which there were several loud blow-ups that led to a coach having to come into the locker room.
Donovan confirmed the incident before the Heat game, but also said that he was not in the locker room when it happened, only informed about it afterwards.
The genesis of those words being said?
The constant defensive breakdowns that had been happening over the previous five games, but specifically taking place in that first half against an undermanned Minnesota squad. While LaVine wasn’t named in the call-out, it was said to be directed at him.
Not that it would come as a surprise.
Forget the fact that LaVine was given a five-year, $215-million max contract last summer. While those numbers might somewhat factor into frustration from teammates, it’s the defensive numbers that have reportedly riled the locker room up.
Especially when LaVine has proven to be able to defend at a much higher level, and all but promised last season – a contract year – that he would.
He showed that with Team USA in the 2021 summer, and then again with the Bulls throughout training camp and into the first six weeks of that regular season.
At one point in late November, LaVine’s defensive rating was 103.4, which ranked him 79th in the NBA among starters – as high as LaVine had ever been ranked. Then the left knee started acting up, and the rest of the 2021-22 campaign was history. LaVine ended that season still carrying that poor reputation on that end of the court, finishing with a career-worse 116.1 rating.
With the knee surgically repaired and the contract extension no longer a concern, the hope was he would get back to being that willing defender. That hasn’t happened.
Donovan was asked if he felt LaVine was currently unable to defend at a high level because of the knee or because he simply won’t, and that’s when the coach did his best to get into a stance and defend his star. Sort of.
“Some of the things he has referenced to you guys is he’s trying to get his legs underneath him, so I think that has an impact on it,” Donovan said of what he was seeing on film from LaVine defensively. “But I think clearly our entire team the last five games, everybody is capable of being better defensively. Not only Zach, but Vooch [Nikola Vucevic], DeMar [DeRozan], Alex [Caruso], everybody. We’ve got to be better collectively, and as a coaching staff we’ve got to help them as well.”
When asked specifically what the coaches could do to help LaVine improve his defense, Donovan said
“There’s situations where guys are getting blown-by off the dribble, there’s not communication on the back-side … I don’t think you can sit there and point at every defensive breakdown and say, ‘Hey, that’s on Zach.’ Or ‘It’s all DeMar.’ No, it’s all of us,” Donovan said. “We’re all together. And we as coaches play a part in it too, as constantly trying to create the clarity for him as in, ‘This is what we’re doing and can we do it at a high enough level?’ ”
Green with injury
Javonte Green missed his fifth game with knee soreness, and while he’s progressing according to Donovan, he’s also experiencing pain in the knee when they ramp up his rehab activity.