Billy Donovan Postgame Interview | Sacramento Kings vs Chicago Bulls – 2.03.24
Okay good uh Billy uh obviously when you guys made that comeback it looked like the pace just completely increased is that the way you would need to play for four quarters and is that sustainable I thought our defensive activity really picked up I thought we got stops um I
Thought we were really active with our hands we had a lot of deflections um you know I thought the early part of the game we you know didn’t one didn’t shoot the ball well but I thought our turnovers really hurt us again you know certainly in that first half um
I thought the turnovers with the couple with the fact that we didn’t get back well enough in transition um and then you know I thought we started off the third quarter really kind of the right way we did some good things but we couldn’t get anything to go down we
Missed I think three straight threes they made three straight threes so the lead kind of ballooned up pretty quickly um but I think it was a game for us where I thought there was you know too many you know self-induced you know mistakes on our part that you know at at
That point was hard to to overcome but I thought the effort um being down by whatever it was 26 or 28 to fight our way back um but I do think the Miss shots the deflections and turnovers enabled us to play with pretty good Pace I mean they shot an astronomically high
Percentage from both three in the field so in that situation you’re taking the ball out of the net quite a bit and it’s hard to really generate Pace most of the time you’re going to generate good pace and speed um you know when when you’re playing off
Some missed shots and then and I thought we did a much better job attacking the paint and getting downhill in in in in the third and the fourth Billy with uh I mean this that second quarter obviously wasn’t just the the bench’s fault I mean everyone there were a lot of culverts
That that quarter but at the same time when you have so many guys coming in and out I mean you haven’t had a a cohesive bench where it’s kind of that same group are you starting to see that that there’s guys that are unfamiliar with
What the other guys doing in a lack of communication or what are you seeing with that group right I thought that happened on a couple possessions defens I ly the communication piece but yeah we’ve got to find a rhythm there Joe I mean um I I think a guy like tor’s been
Around a lot you know so I think you know what he’s probably got to find his rhythm um you know I think for Julian and even teret to a certain standpoint because they ended up playing pretty pretty big at the three yeah they played pretty big at the 34 and five and you
Know we were just small and we got I thought hurt on the glass and hurt inside so we went with Terry just to be a little bit bigger um but yeah we going to have to find some kind of chemistry and cohesiveness there you know with the
Second unit as as as you know Tori starts to come back and it’s hard for him you right CU he’s on a minute restriction and really what the what what they wanted tonight from us was they you know medically was no try to keep it within four minutes you know and
No more than 20 and um and it’s hard you know you yanking guys in and out sometimes but you’re also trying to get his feet wet again and then you’re trying to um you know get him a rhythm and then certainly try trying to arest some of other guys well you mentioned
Turnovers uh a little bit here over the last couple weeks do you have any sort of reason why you think that’s become I mean you’re still like you know top half of the league and taking care of the ball but uh you know we’re top five I
Think prior to for the first couple months like why do you think that’s kind of falling off uh I thought a few times in in in the first half it was our spacing you know we our spacing wasn’t wasn’t good enough I thought it was much
Better in the second half um I thought the guys adjusted pretty well to that some of it was just carelessness to be honest with you know just like we had one where we I think May in Iowa was trying to get down and transition he DED off the guy’s shoe accidentally and they
Got the ball back there was a couple uh you know errand passes that made one pass went through our hands out of bounds it was just a lot of careless carelessness that I think we just got to we got to concentrate more um in in those situations and listen some of it
Was they did a good job defensively they were active with their hands I thought Fox had a couple times generated some steals with his activity but there was quite a few that I thought were self-inflicted you know where we could have been better there seems no real
Discernable pattern to you know the way you got like recently there was a lot of these we played really well in the first half but the second half we sort of let down third quarter was a long period of problems obviously flipped that tonight is there anything that you know you see
In these you know different you know different versions of the team we just got to be more consistent you know I and I and I and I don’t I I say this because I don’t think that we’re any different from any other team in this league we
Don’t have a lot of room for margin for error we just don’t you know so when you start turning the ball over 16 times or you go through a period of time where you really really shoot the ball poorly for a long stretch you know and you can’t get stops defensively like we
Really got to be really really good and detailed and concentrate you know on the things that we can control we can control handleing the basketball better you know we can control getting back in transition and communicating better there’s things I think we got to we’ve
Got got to be better at in terms of the consistency part we this you and I’ve talked about it you know makeer Miss League there’s going to be nights you don’t shoot the ball well and there’s going to be nights you do shoot the ball well but you got to do
Other things that you have control over to put yourself in position to win games and in in on a night like tonight I think there was enough things out there that we could have done better I’m not saying that we deserve to win the game
Or should have won the game but we could have certainly not been down 28 points had we done some of those other things more consist consistently and I think maybe some of the inconsistency has been some of the stuff that’s been self-inflicted is there a is a hangover
When a player you know like Zach goes out you know team is told okay he’s gone for the season now you know come out flat you know or is it just miss shots yeah I I I don’t think so I because I mean one is I I know Zach’s got a great
Relationship with those guys and those guys care about him as we all do um and you don’t want to see somebody go through that it’s probably a better question to ask that them but my gut would be that we knew Zach wasn’t going to play tonight you know what I mean so
It wasn’t like he was going to be out there if it had an impact on them in terms of them really feeling bad for a teammate and a guy that they’ve got a good relationship with possibly um and and I I don’t want to make it seem at
All like our guys don’t care but it’s not like we were going into this game where all of a sudden you know we found out right before tip that he wasn’t going to play um and plus guys go in and out of the lineup all the time I mean
There’s a lot of things now we have game time decision some guys can’t try to go and can’t go um but they they certainly I think probably feel you know really really bad for Zach and disappointed that you know he can’t be part of it uh but I don’t I don’t they’re probably
Better better group to ask what how that impacted them I didn’t check the numbers and I should have but it seemed like in the first half he wasn’t playing as much was that were you trying to save him more for the end game and monitors yeah I
Mean I I just think that um you know he he’s just battling different bumps and bruises and aches and pains and you know like we’ve talked about he’s absorbed a lot of minutes and you know I’m trying to find ways to rest him to keep him
From certain you know points in time in the game and you know the other thing too is like when you all of a sudden team starts going on a run you’re more inclined to start throwing those guys back in there and then it just adds into
The minutes so I did part of the reason that I think he played right around 15 was to try to give us a little bit more of a leeway uh in the second half there was so much going on pregame we didn’t even ask you about him landing on the injury report
Was that just there was so much going on pregame we didn’t even ask you about him landing on the injury report was he able to practice yesterday and is this just normal he he did not practice yesterday went through shoot around today and and there was some guys that we just quite
Honestly we rested you know like dear we rested we rested AC took some reps um Kobe rested uh Tori was a full participant because obviously we’re trying to see if he was going to be able to play so we have done that in I think maybe Joe asked me about that you know
In practice you know in terms of how do you utilize that time maybe with some of these guys with heavy minutes we just got to be conscientious at that so I think you know the bumps and bruises of kind of you know what he’s dealt with
For the amount of minutes and and how hard he plays and just body being banged up it’s just part of it there so we’re trying to when we do get an opportunity to rest him we try to try to do try to do as much as we can thanks coach okay
Yep thank you
Exhausting way to lose
