It wasn’t pretty at times.
As a matter of fact, there were moments that were downright ugly.
The kind of ugly only a coach could embrace.
And that’s exactly what Billy Donovan did.
Rather than using the gauntlet of a schedule as an excuse after the roster had a shakeup at the trade deadline, Donovan was hoping the four-straight road losses would be the smack in the face this new group needed.
Smack felt, and Sunday against the Eastern Conference-leading Brooklyn Nets it was reciprocated.
Behind 22 points and 13 rebounds from Nikola Vucevic in his United Center debut, the Bulls (20-28) put together one of their more impressive wins of the season, beating the visiting team 115-107, as well as ending a six-game losing streak that began before the front office opted to shuffle the roster deck.
“The one thing that I thought was good about the schedule to start with personally for me was we played against really, really good teams,’’ Donovan said of the losses suffered after five new players were added on Mar. 25. “This is the NBA and every team on any given night, anybody can beat anybody. If you look at the net rating of a Phoenix of a Utah, clearly they’re the upper-echelon of the NBA, so I think going against those kinds of teams you find out a lot more about yourself.
“I think you find out more about the things you have to do as a team to get better, to really, really improve, and as tough as it was, there were some things I thought we did well in those games and things we didn’t do well.’’
The Bulls starters especially seemed to grab the good and take it out on the undermanned Nets (34-16).
That meant exploiting a roster without Kevin Durant and James Harden – both expected back from injury this week – and using the bigger frontcourt as a focal point to do just that.
Vucevic, Daniel Theis and Thad Young each had moments taking advantage of their size around the basket, as Donovan continued shifting his team’s identity to playing out of the post.
“We’ve had to add some different things and we’ll continue to do that to play to guys’ strengths,’’ Donovan said. “That’s how we’re going to have to do it – play through the post.’’
Not the only size advantage the Bulls played with.
At 6-foot-7, Tomas Satoransky sees over most opposing point guards. That hasn’t always translated to an advantage for the Bulls, but it did against the Nets, as the veteran had one of his better games of the season.
Not only did Satoransky score 19 points, but handed out 11 assists.
“He was really key,’’ Donovan said of Satoransky’s performance. “He stopped a lot of runs and he made a lot of key plays. When he gets in that lane he’s crafty.’’
Satoransky simply looked at it as an important game in which he needed to step up.
“That was a much-needed win,’’ Satoransky said. “It’s been very difficult to change styles on the road. We played much smarter and used a lot more of our bigs, which is our advantage moving forward.’’
An advantage this roster knows it will need to with what’s in front of it.
The win over the Nets was significant because now there is a stretch of must-win games if the Bulls want to have a shot at the postseason, starting Tuesday at Indiana.
“It’s natural that when we make big changes like we did, players don’t want to step on toes,’’ Vucevic said of Sunday’s turnaround win. “We will get better, we will get used to each other, we will build that team chemistry.’’
