Two words not in the vocabulary of Bulls coach Billy Donovan? Slow down

Billy Donovan is not about to hold up a stop sign. Heck, the Bulls coach doesn’t even feel the need to grab a sign that reads “Slow Down.”

His offense can’t afford to.

Too undersized, too inexperienced in playing with each other, and frankly just not good enough to be a lethal team in half-court sets. So while it would be easier on Donovan if his new-look roster was a bit better conditioned, he’s doing all he can to try and get them there – one mile per hour quicker at a time.

“One is you have to look at are they capable of playing that way?” Donovan said, when discussing the need to keep his offensive philosophy intact. “Now, are they conditioned for that? We’re trying to obviously get that done. The other point is if we don’t try and play in transition and play fast, we don’t have enough cohesiveness and chemistry to be this team where, ‘We’re going to out-execute you in the halfcourt.’ “

Of all the traded pieces that most disrupted what Donovan liked to do on the offensive end, center Nikola Vucevic’s role has been the hardest to try and replicate. Not only because of his skillset as a versatile big, but his IQ.

“A lot of what we did, and the biggest adjustment has been not having Vooch here,” Donovan said. “He was such a facilitator and a pocket player, a guy that can score at different levels, you ran offense through him. That’s taken away some of the package. If we try and play in the halfcourt, one, we don’t have enough (practice) time to work on that execution, and two, the way the league is going you want to play a little faster.”

As long as the legs hold up.

While Donovan thinks the likes of Collin Sexton, Rob Dillingham and Anfernee Simons have the ability to play up-tempo basketball, their conditioning says otherwise. What the coach wants to avoid is more injuries than the Bulls already have.

“What’s been difficult for me is as much as you want to practice, you have guys coming into here that are playing more minutes now than they did at their prior teams,” Donovan added. “There is a concern medically that we’ve got to be careful that if these guys get ramped up so many minutes that these guys end up going out.”

Size matters

The Bulls’ frontcourt continued to thin out with Patrick Williams now in street clothes with a quad strain. The forward suffered the injury in the loss to Charlotte.

“His will probably be at least a week,” Donovan said of Williams’ timetable. “It could be longer, although I think they would try and ramp him up and do some more in about a week (after they) can get it to calm down.”

Forward/center Jalen Smith remained sidelined with a calf issue and like Williams was at least a week away from starting to get reconditioned.

That leaves undersized 6-foot-7 Guerschon Yabusele as the starting center for the time being.

Closer look

While Donovan is still figuring out exact roles and combinations for the roster, one player he has already tabbed as having a chance to be an improved defender down this final stretch is Sexton.

That hasn’t been the guard’s reputation throughout his career, but Donovan said he felt the skill to do that was there.