Having a great track record of making his defense the key to his teams is what Chicago Bulls head coach, Tom Thibodeau is know for. This season the Bulls are ninth in the league ranking in defense, but that’s too low for the Bulls standards.
According to one player though, the team lacks trust in each other on defense. Coach Tibs (as he’s called) believes that’s not accurate, in not so kind words.
From Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun Times:
After the morning shootaround, it was Taj Gibson explaining the defensive lapses as, “Just the effort and having trust in one another.’’
It wasn’t the first time “trusting each other’’ was used as an explanation for the defensive problems, with Joakim Noah also insisting that was an issue over the weekend. …
“That’s garbage,’’ Thibodeau said of trust issues. “That’s garbage. Trust is work. That’s how you build trust. You gotta know what you’re doing. You have to be tied together. You have to work at it. It’s a cop-out. …
“That’s [Thibodeau’s] opinion,’’ Gibson said. “That was just me and Jo’s opinion. We’re on the court.
Now it may be misconstrued by Coach Tibs to have him thinking his players are saying they don’t trust each other on the team, getting it confused with not trusting each other on defense.
Not trusting someone on your team builds to a complete implosion of the team and it just all goes down-hill from there. Not trusting your teammates on the defensive end though is different. There may be a matchup that you know isn’t favorable for your teammate or you might know he’s a little tired and you’re going to have to come help on defense when needed. That’s where the defensive trust Gibson is talking about may be from.
Either way, according to the Bulls standards, they’re underachieving. It may have been due to the injury to Gibson recently, but now that he’s back in the full swing of things, expect an elevated defensive presence especially in the front court.
