The Bulls held a team meeting following their loss to the shorthanded Hawks on Wednesday, according to Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic, who says that defeat at the hands of Atlanta encapsulated everything that’s gone wrong this season, including turnovers, poor shooting and being out-rebounded.
“We focus on the wrong things,” center Nikola Vučević said. “We have to understand that it’s the details that make the difference at this level.”
The Bulls are in a similar place to where they’ve been for the past few seasons. At 18-23, they just missed out on having the same record through the first half of the season for the fourth time in five years. Chicago was 19-22 in three of the past four seasons.
According to Mayberry, questions are swirling about the team’s February plans, as they haven’t made a deadline deal in any of the last three years.
We have more from the Central Division:
- Cavaliers center Evan Mobley is enjoying a career year, which has included extending his range and efficiency beyond the arc, Joe Vardon of The Athletic writes. Mobley is shooting a career-high 42.1% on three-pointers and has more than doubled his attempts per game. “I don’t know what his work routine looked like (last season), I have no idea,” coach Kenny Atkinson said. “But what I see right now is that a big part of his player-development plan and on-court work is dedicated to the 3-point shot. And then with that three-point shooting comes close-out offense … [defenses] start to close out [on Mobley].“
- After missing 14 games due to an injury, Pacers wing Ben Sheppard is back in Rick Carlisle‘s rotation for the Pacers. “Once he’s been back healthy, the thing that we love about him is he plays the same way,” Carlisle said within a feature on Sheppard by Spencer Davies of RG.org. “He plays fast, he goes hard, he’s very conscientious defensively. Offensively, he runs, moves the ball and plays to his strengths. So he’s a guy that’s important to us.”
- Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith missed 35 games this year with an ankle injury, but he picked up right where he left off in a double-digit win over the Pistons, Dustin Dopirak of IndyStar writes. “He’s going to go out there and try to rebound everything and be a menace out there,” teammate Myles Turner said. In his return game on Thursday, Nesmith scored nine points in as many minutes as a starter.