RIDE AND SEEK
Boylen sticking with young starters to see what they have
LOS ANGELES — Jim Boylen doesn’t deal in empty warnings.
Since becoming Bulls coach on Dec. 3, he has been matter-of-fact with what he asks of his players. If those requests aren’t met, there are consequences.
If Boylen sees players winded in the fourth quarter, they’re running suicides in practice the next day. If mistakes are made in practice, there will be pushups to do. If a player doesn’t want to show effort on both ends of the floor, he probably will find himself sitting at the end of the bench next to Jabari Parker.
There are exceptions, though, especially when it comes to a starting unit that has an average age of 22.5 — typically younger than the age required to rent a car.
“Experience is the best teacher,’’ guard Zach LaVine said.
That’s what Boylen is holding on to, and that’s why he’ll continue riding the starting group of LaVine, Kris Dunn, Wendell Carter Jr., Lauri Markkanen and Chandler Hutchison as it learns to sink or swim together.
“I think there’s some force-feeding going on, and then there’s going to come a point where … we are young, our starting group is 22.5 years old,” Boylen said. “That’s the reality of it, that’s not an excuse, and we’ve got to learn how to win. We’ll probably give them some opportunity to show us they can do it.’’
They didn’t Saturday night at Utah. The bench had one of its better showings since Boylen took over, doing all it could to hand the baton off to the starters for the final sprint. It turned into another stumble.
With just over seven minutes left in the game and the Bulls trailing by three, Boylen went back to most of his starters — Wayne Selden stayed in a bit longer for Hutchison — then watched the Jazz go on a 13-3 run in the next five minutes. There was too much isolation ball, not enough physicality on the boards and a lack of the killer instinct that Boylen has been trying to reinforce.
“It is disappointing,’’ Boylen said. “We’ve got to get that killer mentality, we’ve got to make those plays. I thought we had the plays to make, and we didn’t make them. I thought we had the opportunity to score the ball, and we didn’t do it. Then you’ve got to rebound it in the fourth, and you’ve got to get stops.’’ This unit has done it before. Despite losing in overtime to the Pacers last week, the game was a thing of beauty for the Bulls, especially with the core of LaVine, Markkanen and Dunn all having special moments.
But this isn’t the business of showing up once every three or four games or relying on two rookies in Carter Jr. and Hutchison to lead late-game heroics.
This falls on Markkanen, Dunn and LaVine to figure it out in what is a key developmental year for them.
“I keep repeating myself. It just comes down to plays and us not making them at the right time,’’ LaVine said. “We got to get better at [executing]. We’ve got to find ways to get good shots. We had a couple good ones [against the Jazz]. I know I did, and I’ve got to capitalize on them. I’m upset that I didn’t do that for the team, but we’re going out there fighting.’’
And for now, Boylen has little choice but to let them.