Bulls head coach Billy Donovan's harsh reaction to viral Torrey Craig-Andre Drummond Shaqtin' a Fool debacle

10/04/2024 20:12

The Chicago Bulls lost at home on Tuesday night against the New York Knicks, and there was one play in particular that summed up this season for the Bulls pretty well. Torrey Craig had the ball and was all alone and it looked like he was going to get two points for Chicago. Craig tried to do an alley-oop off the backboard to himself, but Andre Drummond was trailing him, and they both tried to dunk it. The ball did not go in the hoop, and the Knicks got the rebound.

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Those kinds of plays just can’t happen, especially at this time of the year. The Bulls are fighting for seeding in the play-in tournament and they were in a close game at that point. It simply can’t happen, and head coach Billy Donovan was not happy about it.

“We addressed it on the bench,” Billy Donovan said after the game, according to an article from Audacy. “Obviously, to me, it was just really disappointing. I'm not going to get into what I said, but you're down by 10. There was a lot of self-induced things that I thought we contributed to – not only that play but other plays that maybe weren't as loud as that. But that play was disappointing to me. I don't care really who he was throwing the ball to. I just, we don't need to be doing that. I'm not going to get into everything I said on the bench, but that's not what I'm about and it's not what we should be about.”

Torrey Craig was left in the game despite the disastrous play. Donovan addressed it on the bench, and then he wanted Craig and the Bulls to get back to business as usual.

“These guys are professional players,” Donovan said. “He's got a job to do. I think he felt bad about it. I think it got addressed on the bench, but I'm not going to sit there and hold a grudge against him. We need him.”

Torrey Craig breaks down his thought process

Torrey Craig was expecting to give the Bulls two points in emphatic fashion on that play. He wanted to give his team some momentum, but that didn’t end up happening.

“Just got a fast break, wanted to create some excitement, try to give us an edge, try to create some momentum for us,” Torrey Craig said. “Obviously, didn’t know Drum [Andre Drummond] was going to jump out there with me. It was a miscommunication or a misinterpretation, whatever. But at the end of the day, I've just got to dunk the ball or lay it up. I'll take the blame on that.”

Craig noted that he knew he should dunk it while he was running down the court, but he thought that doing it with the self alley-oop could give the team some juice.

“Dunk it,” Craig said in regards to what he was thinking. “Like, dunk it. Like I said, create some excitement for us, try to give us a bit of an edge and just make a run. Obviously, it didn't turn out that way.”

At the end of the day, Craig knows he made a mistake, and he knows that he has to be better in the future.

“Sometimes we let our emotions get the best of us, but it's an emotional game, especially when you want to win, especially when you're competitive,” Craig said. “Sometimes your emotions are going to get the best of you. We just got to do a better job as a team in not letting it cost us in games.”

The Bulls will return to action on Thursday night on the road against the Detroit Pistons.

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