Nick Friedell, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Despite win, Thibs still 'concerned'

MILWAUKEE -- On the surface, Saturday night should have been a good one for the Chicago Bulls. They won for the first time in three preseason games, 91-85 over the Milwaukee Bucks. Derrick Rose played 22 minutes, the most time he's seen all preseason, scored 16 points, grabbed 5 rebounds and dished out 4 assists. Joakim Noah played almost 24 minutes, the most he's played all preseason, and scored 10 points. Pau Gasol and Jimmy Butler closed out the game, combining for 38 points and 18 rebounds, and held things down for their team down the stretch. Even rookie Doug McDermott played solidly in his first professional start, in place of Mike Dunleavy (sore knee).

Despite the victory and the performances, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau was not pleased after the game. He wanted his team to show him more, and he continues to sound disappointed by its play over the past week.

"You're going to win some, you're going to lose some," Thibodeau said. "Obviously, you want to want to win a lot more than you lose. But I am very concerned about whether we're making the necessary preparations to win. Whether you're putting the work in that's necessary to win. I know what goes into winning and you have to do that every day. You can't skip that. You're not going to rest your way to success. You got to get sharp and you got to get sharp fast. It's a long season and you've got to prepare to play a long season."

Thibodeau has always been a hard man for his team to please. He wants his players always to reach for much more. He wants perfection on a daily basis, but what's more attainable in his world is effort. It's clear from Thibodeau's comments that he doesn't feel his team is putting in the kind of effort it needs right now into preparing for the season. As somebody who has been with Thibodeau during all five years of his tenure, Bulls power forward Taj Gibson seems to understand where his domineering coach is coming from.

"Right now it's training camp," Gibson said. "Right now you can't tap us on the back right away. We're still trying to learn. We're still trying to get better. We got a young group of guys, an extremely talented group of guys, and we're just trying to figure it out. A lot of expectations, a lot of stuff's going to come at us right away. We got a lot of teams that are going to come at us and we can't slouch. I love [Thibs'] mentality, how he's pushing us."

The players can sense that Thibodeau is a little tighter than usual. They understand that expectations, with a healthy Rose back in the fold, are higher than they have been in recent memory. Fans want another championship and they want one this season. That's why Saturday's game, despite the outcome, is another reminder that the players had better be ready to tighten things up a lot more before the Oct. 29 regular season opener at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks.

"Just extra effort," McDermott said of what Thibodeau wants. "Not giving up on plays, getting back on defense. I think he's just a perfectionist. And he wants everyone to be in the right spot and I think we did a lot better job of that tonight."

Gibson knows better. The veteran used an example of a team that didn't live up to expectations recently, an example Thibodeau has surely discussed with his own team.

"You see how Brooklyn was last year," Gibson said. "So much expectation and they were scratching and clawing to get in [the playoffs]. We understand that we got a lot of things in front of us and we're pushing. We got a lot of things we got to correct from defense to offense. I think we're good, though. I think guys are hungry and we want to push it and keep working. But everybody's just got to push a little bit harder."

That's exactly the way the veteran coach wants his team to think. His message couldn't have been clearer Saturday night. He wants the Bulls to get back on track quickly because he knows that everybody will be gunning for them this season.

"The decisions as to who is going to play is going to be based on performance," Thibodeau said. "If your game's not sharp I'm going to the next guy. So that's the way it's going to be."

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