Getty Goran Dragic #7, Chicago Bulls
After the Chicago Bulls were blown out by the Minnesota Timberwolves 150-126, Darnell Mayberry asked Goran Dragic why the Bulls, who are now 11-18 and have now lost four games in a row, are not playing as connected as they should be. Dragic said that the Bulls simply aren’t playing for one another.
“We are not playing for each other. Simple as that,” Dragic said. “Somebody told me, ‘It’s easy to talk about sacrifice if somebody else is sacrificing,’ but when it comes to you, you have to sacrifice for the team. That is a different story. You have to accept it, but it’s tough. Everybody needs to do that because we’re in the same boat. Everybody’s playing for the same colors, for the same team, for the same city. That’s why we have to sacrifice for each other.”
Dragic said it’s the little details that the Bulls have to get right to win consistently.
“To make a better play, to make a better defensive stop, to screen somebody to make a swing-swing-pass – if you have a good shot, if you swing it, somebody will have a better shot – it’s the small details. In this league everybody can beat you, and we can see that,” Dragic said.
A candid Goran Dragić on all that currently ails the Bulls:
“We’re not playing for each other.”
DeRozan Ripped Bulls Following Blowout Loss vs. Knicks
DeRozan ripped the team as a whole after losing to the New York Knicks, 114-91.
“We played like s***,” DeRozan said, per NBC Sports Chicago‘s K.C Johnson. DeRozan would go on to talk about how they can’t let their frustration get to them because of how it can negatively affect them on the court..
“I think myself, along with a few others, we let frustration get to us, whether we felt like calls weren’t going our way or whatever,” he said. “We didn’t have a sense of urgency. We didn’t do nothing. That goes back on us having to look in the mirror and start with each and every one of us. If you’re a competitor, you gotta play a full game.
“We gotta get tired of having this feeling of not competing and losing like this, especially on our homecourt. It’s not ideal where we’re at. But hey, great stories start with some sort of tragedy.”
Dragic Said Nets Focused on Individual Performances, Not Team
Dragic has gotten brutally honest when talking about his previous teams like he did after he played for half of last season with the Brooklyn Nets. While talking with Slovenian news outlet Siol.net, Dragic said during the offseason that the Nets’ focus was more on individual performances than it was on the team.
“Last year, I decided the way I did. I played with some stars like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, and I have to admit that it was quite difficult because the focus was not the team, but more the individual performances of the individuals,” Dragic said, as translated by Google Translate.
Dragic also talked about how difficult it was for him to play heavy minutes for the Nets after a long layoff.
“Last season, I didn’t play for four months, then I came to Brooklyn and immediately played 30 minutes, which was difficult. The season was really not successful, but the most important thing is that it is behind us, it is in the past, and now we can only look forward,” Dragic said.
His team situation has not gotten better since joining the Bulls, who find themselves outside of the Eastern Conference playoff race.