Kris Dunn gets what his coach has been trying to do.
Then again, the Bulls point guard is one of the few players on the roster that passes Jim Boylen’s toughness test, and does so with flying colors.
So while Dunn knows the disdain that many in the fan base currently have for Boylen, he thinks there’s a bigger picture being missed.
“I don’t know if it’s energy or we’re locked into our assignments, but you got to have fun with it,’’ Dunn said, when discussing the team’s toughness carrying over to games from the practice court. “You can’t worry about the he said, she said, the media, any of that. You just got to have fun, compete. When adversity hits in a game that has to be the fun part.
“You get to see who is going to buckle down, who is going to go out there and play with heart. That’s what Jim preaches, play with toughness, play with heart, and don’t back down. That’s the city of Chicago.’’
And the Bulls have been getting a lot of work in that toughness department, whether it is drills that include pads and contact or Boylen just speaking to his players about understanding that the NBA is a big boy league.
The problem?
It hasn’t been registering with everyone, and maybe that’s just the DNA of some of these players that the Bulls have assembled on the roster.
Either way, it’s an ongoing issue.
“We all want to win, and we talked openly that the goal was to compete for a playoff spot,’’ vice president of basketball operations John Paxson said, when discussing the frustration that this season has presented so far. “Our players believed that, and they still have something to say about that. This is a combination of everything. One of the struggles that we’ve had is that when physicality presents itself to them in a game, they don’t always respond. That’s just a truth, and that’s cost us in a lot of games.
“It’s very easy to point a finger at Coach or something like that, and I’m not going to convince anyone of anything else, and I’m never going to try. I see things that I know that they’re emphasizing correctly. To me it’s that carryover into games. At some point that has to change.’’
That’s why Paxson came out on Saturday and gave Boylen a vote of confidence.
The toughness issue is being addressed frequently, but as far as the organization was concerned the players inevitably have to be the ones that embrace it.
“Right now there’s nothing we’re going to do,’’ Paxson said, insisting there are no roster moves on the horizon. “We’ve got to keep developing these young kids, and they’ve got to play harder, they’ve got to play better. They’ve got to do all the things that pros do. This is where we’re at, and as frustrated as I am personally, and Jim is, and our players are that we haven’t won more games, we’ve got to keep grinding it out.’’
That’s why Boylen won’t stop emphasizing it. Even if his players are getting worn down by the ongoing message.
“We’ve played really good defense,’’ Boylen said of the toughness issue. “We need to have more of that on the offensive end of the floor. Sometimes it’s as simple as the ball going in a little bit and our mindset, our confidence changes. But when people crawl into us I think we’ve got to grit our teeth, we’ve got to slow down, not speed up, and we’ve got to play lower. We’ve got to embrace the contact, and we’ve got to play through it. Some of that is just maturity. Some of that is what we have to experience and then grow with it.’’
