Jim Boylen Is Mad Offline and Other Bulls Bullets

Mar 05, 2020

My health depends on it …

I swear, the Bulls better get legit work done on this FO nonsense the minute this season ends.

— Elias Schuster (@Schuster_Elias) March 5, 2020

JIM BOYLEN SMASH! The Bulls head coach channeled his inner beast last night after the Bulls 115-108 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Following the game, he called out his team’s toughness and said he challenged his locker room to amp up the competitiveness.

Boylen: "I don't care who's coming back. I don't care who's been out, who's working on a minutes restriction. I didn't think we were tough enough tonight. And I didn't like it."
— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) March 5, 2020

If Boylen thinks he’s upset with how this team has performed, I recommend he sit down to dinner with literally any Bulls fan. At this point in the season, in my opinion, his tone just feels disingenuous. I’m sure following a win over the Dallas Mavericks with a loss to one of the league’s worst teams in the Minnesota Timberwolves feels like a gut punch, but is he really telling us this is what broke him? The weirdest part is, this isn’t even one of the worst performances the Bulls have had recently. Against the Knicks, the Bulls lost the rebounding battle 50-33, and on the defensive boards last night, the Bulls hovered right around their season average:

This criticism of his team seems misplaced. #Bulls' D-rebounding percentage was 75% tonight, just a shade under their season average. That wasn't egregious. And point guards received a ton of minutes tonight (White, Satoransky, Harrison all 29-plus minutes). https://t.co/Wcpt9NqvnS
— Cody Westerlund (@CodyWesterlund) March 5, 2020

And 670 The Score’s Cody Westerlund brings up a great point here, the three players to lead the Bulls in minutes last night were point guards. Meanwhile, Otto Porter played only about 18 minutes off the bench, and Daniel Gafford played only 10 minutes. So Boylen can bicker about his team’s lack of toughness all he wants, but he still threw 11 players on the court, closed the game with a four-guard lineup, and lost the rebounding battle by only four. Agreed, Westerlund, Boylen’s anger seems misplaced.

Now, with all that said, Thaddeus Young did seem to agree with at least some of Boylen’s frustration. After the game, he told reporters: “The message has always been loud and clear. We have to be tough. We have to play what we call Bulls basketball, which is being a hard-nosed team. Tonight, there were crucial plays where we didn’t get stops or rebounds we needed. It makes it harder when you have those miscues.”

This could be reading far too much into Boylen’s bout of anger, but maybe it means he’s feeling the heat? The Athletic’s Darnell Mayberry brings up this point in his postgame piece as well. If his frustration continues to show, it could be a sign that he recognizes his days with “Bulls across the chest” are numbered.

With how rough the Timberwolves have been, this is pretty depressing.

The Bulls have lost 5 straight games in Minnesota, equaling Brooklyn for the longest losing active streak in the Twin Cities.

— Jeff Mangurten (@JeffGurt) March 5, 2020

In what’s becoming the standard quo … the Bulls stunk, but Coby White went off! He did a little bit of everything last night to keep the Bulls alive:

Coby stayed hot against the Timberwolves.

26 points | 11-22 shooting | 6 assists pic.twitter.com/ptrUkjIdZ4

— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) March 5, 2020

While it feels like we have to let the “start Coby White” train leave the station without us, I think with Zach LaVine out, it may be in the team’s best interest. If LaVine is healthy and White continues to get 33+ minutes off the bench, so be it. However, the Bulls starting unit really struggled to establish any sort rhythm on the offensive end without him on the floor.

Bleacher Report’s Will Gottlieb has a great breakdown of the rookie’s recent hot streak:

Went into the film, stats and talked with a scout to look at what's real and what's not from this insanely hot stretch from Coby White @BleacherReport https://t.co/bv2icAORlN
— Will Gottlieb (@wontgottlieb) March 5, 2020

K.C. Johnson weighed in on all the recent front office shenanigans this morning, so give it a read, and will have more on it shortly.

Bulls mailbag: Are Bulls pursuing Sam Presti? What will be John Paxson's role? | NBC Sports Chicago https://t.co/PL7hHhlCjL

— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) March 5, 2020

written by

Elias Schuster

Elias Schuster is the Lead Chicago Bulls writer at Bleacher Nation. He started with BN full-time in 2019 immediately after graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign with a degree in Journalism (yes, he started with the Jim Boylen Era). Since joining, Elias has been the driving force behind Bulls and NBA content for both the site and social accounts. You can follow him on Twitter/X @Schuster_Elias.

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