Pat Bev is calling on his teammates to establish better presence inside the paint.
The Chicago Bulls are not a particularly tall team, with their tallest players—Nikola Vucevic and Andre Drummond—each standing at 6-foot-10. The Los Angeles Lakers took advantage of the Bulls’ lack of length and size inside to win the rebounding battle, 45-32, and eventually the game, 121-110. Afterward, fiery guard Pat Beverley implored everyone to do their part in making sure they’re boxing out people to increase their chances of grabbing rebounds.
“We’re not particularly a tall team,” said Beverley. “So we have to do a better job putting bodies on people. We have to do a better job rebounding the ball. And we will.”
Critical stretch
With a tough stretch of games ahead that includes games against good rebounding teams like Charlotte, Atlanta, Memphis, and Milwaukee, the Bulls will need to find a way to hold off dominant rebounders like Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr., Atlanta’s Clint Capela, and Charlotte’s young big man PJ Washington.
Although the Bulls are now in a good position to get a spot in the NBA Play-in tournament, Beverley says he’s more focused on helping his team develop good habits to make them prepared for anything.
“I don’t even think about the eighth seed. I just want to play a good brand of basketball and wherever we fall, we fall. We’re prepared for anything; Billy D is going to make sure we’re prepared for anything. So it’s up to us to get better as a unit,” Pat Bev added.
Get better at controlling the glass
Bulls coach Billy Donovan said the team’s rebounding woes against the Lakers stemmed from a combination of bad positioning and the Lakers’ impressive size.
“The game is played now when jump shots go up; generally, those shots are not going to be rebounded in the lane. They either bounce outside the lane around the block or they come up (at) the elbows (the spots along the lane). We had too many guys running underneath the free throw line,” explained Donovan.
“There were times Patrick was going to the basket and several times the ball went over his head, and those could have been his rebounds. It wasn’t just Patrick; it was everybody. I thought some of the long rebounds hurt us. You’ve got to secure both boxes and both elbows. And when we don’t do that, sometimes, with our size, we get hurt. We’ve been a pretty good defensive and transition rebounding team. We’ve got to be better on those controllable things.”
