After all the drama surrounding the Bulls last week, they hoped to leave their troubles behind upon embarking on a six-game, 12-day trip road trip.
Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade publicly criticized the work ethic of some younger teammates and Rajon Rondo jumped into the fray, resulting in fines for the veterans. It all left coach Fred Hoiberg — who described it as a "tough week" — trying to ignore the backlash.
"You can’t pay attention to it if you want to survive in this league as a player, as a coach, whatever role you may be in," Hoiberg said before the Bulls drubbed the Thunder 128-100 Wednesday night at Chesapeake Energy Arena. "You have to do the best you can of not letting it rule your life. Go out and do the job."
Hoiberg said reeling off a few victories is the answer for what ails the Bulls.
"Winning does cure all, there’s no doubt about that," he said.
The Bulls were feeling pretty healthy Wednesday after Butler’s 28 points propelled them to their second consecutive victory. Wade added 18 and Robin Lopez 14 as the Bulls improved to 25-25.
Russell Westbrook had 28 points, eight assists and five rebounds for the Thunder.
Moving on: Wade knows a little something about pairing with another star player to lead a team, having played alongside LeBron James with the Heat before they went their separate ways. The Thunder had a similar situation with Westbrook and Kevin Durant before the latter bolted for the Warriors this season. That has left Westbrook to try to lead the Thunder as a solo act.
"They’re just in different places," Wade said of Westbrook and Durant. "It takes away nothing from what they did together. Everyone doesn’t play together their whole careers. Michael (Jordan) and Scottie (Pippen) didn’t play together their whole careers (and) Shaq (O’Neal) and Kobe (Bryant) didn’t play together their whole careers. It doesn’t happen that way that often. And those guys had an unbelievable run together. Their lives and their careers grew in two different ways; what they wanted was different and that’s OK."
Valentine’s day: Hoiberg said he tried to watch rookie Denzel Valentine play for the Windy City Bulls of the Development League on Wednesday but couldn’t get the link to the streaming video to work. He missed Valentine drop 27 points — including five 3-pointers in the fourth quarter — during a 117-109 loss the Long Island Nets in New York.
"It sounds like he played really well down the stretch and brought the team all the way back from a big deficit to give it a chance to win," Hoiberg said. "The big thing for Denzel with the D-League situation is to get conditioning, get timing, and he’ll join us hopefully at some point on this trip.”
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