Fans won’t like Billy Donovan’s surprise claim after another ugly loss to the Pelicans

on Sunday, Chicago Bulls suffered another loss, 114-104 to the lowly New Orleans Pelicans. As a result, the Bulls are now 10-15, far from a a strong 6-1 start to the season.

After the game, the head coach Billy Donovan will probably turn heads with his postgame analysis, per NBA.com’s Sam Smith. Basically, even though they lost again to one of the worst teams in the league, Donovan saw some positives.

“I felt like we played the right way; I really did,” Donovan said. “We didn’t shoot the ball well. The way we played tonight (however) is a sustainable style because even though we shot the ball incredibly poorly, we gave ourselves a chance. No matter how bad we shot (see a trend here?), and the ones that were late, we were there. We’re going to have to find ways to win when we shot well in the match. We compete and we gave ourselves a chance.”

Sunday marked the Pelicans’ second loss of the season. On November 24, they lost 143-130 on the road. Ironic, Donovan laid bare the reality of the Bulls’ struggles after that loss.

Now he has completely changed his mind.

Kobe White led the way with 20 points, five assists and five rebounds. Kevin Huerter had 16 points and four 3-pointers. Nikola Vucevic arrived with 12 points and eight rebounds. Josh Giddy scored 11 points with seven rebounds and five assists.

Matas Bouzelis and Dalen Terry scored 9 points each. Patrick Williams added 8 points. Tre Jones and Jalen Smith scored six points and Isaac Okoro scored five points.

Complete review of criticism of Billy Donovan as Bulls head coach

Donovan has certainly come under fire lately for his coaching abilities. Several factors contribute to this, including continued mediocre play, questionable player development, defensive inexperience and team chemistry issues.

Since taking over as head coach in 2020, the Bulls have been mostly under .500 and have not made the playoffs. Also, some of the rookies haven’t developed into players with real leadership potential.

Most recently, draft pick Noah Essengue’s season finished due to shoulder surgery. Plus, the Bulls are generally a bad defensive team, even with players like Jones and Okoro. They give up too many rebounds, paint points and second chance points.

Then, while Donovan claims the chemistry on the team is solid, others disagree, given the team’s performance.