Bulls' Big Three is history. The Big Spree is here instead, but how long will it last?
You looking for reasons to buy into the Bulls getting through the NBA play-in tournament for the first time in three chances and into the playoffs for the first time since 2022?
Yeah, well, you’re going to have to take what you can get.
One is Josh Giddey. The Bulls, seeded ninth in the Eastern Conference, weren’t certain he’d be able to go Wednesday against the 10th-seeded Heat at the United Center. The 22-year-old guard has been dealing with pain in his left hand and forearm due to something called flexor carpi Ulnaris tendinitis, a not-so-distant cousin of carpal tunnel syndrome. The latter commonly afflicts writers, especially when they’re rigorously typing or wiping spilled food off their shirts. In Giddey’s case, it’s more about dribbling, passing, shooting — truly important stuff, all of it.
But Giddey — demoted from the starting lineup during last year’s playoffs, when he played for Oklahoma City — isn’t about to miss this chance. Soaring since the trade deadline, a two-plus-month period during which he has averaged nearly a triple-double, he has become an indispensable part of everything this hot Bulls team is doing. Best believe he’ll be out there.
“Playing here in a must-win game? There’s no way I’m going to sit it out,” he said Tuesday after practice at the Advocate Center. “We’ll do what we can to reduce the pain as much as possible, but come 7 o’clock, there’s no asterisks on the score sheet. So I’ll be ready to go.”
Encouraging words, no doubt. So were these, from enticing rookie Matas Buzelis, only 20:
“I don’t get nervous.”
And this:
“I don’t lack confidence.”
Both are way better than the alternatives, you know.
“Whenever you get to play for something and compete for something, it definitely fits my nature,” Buzelis said. “I mean, I’m not going to say it doesn’t.”
The Bulls have to beat the Heat — which they failed to do in play-in games each of the last two years — and then hit the road and knock off either the Magic or the Hawks on Friday just to get into a likely unwinnable first-round playoff series against the Cavaliers. It’s not the most promising scenario.
But maybe this team has something its predecessors didn’t.
Long dead is the Big Three. DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine are doing their business elsewhere. Veteran Nikola Vucevic now finds himself surrounded by core teammates a decade or more his junior.
In its place is the Big Spree — a team that keeps pushing the pace faster and harder, wearing down more deliberate opponents such as the Heat late in games and somehow, almost impossible to believe given so many Bulls slogs past, winning 15 of 20 in a dazzling sprint to the regular-season finish line.
Run, shoot, stay hot — it’s the only way for these Bulls (39-43) to stay alive and advance.
“Our identity is up and down [the court],” Giddey said. “It’s not a secret. Everyone knows the way we play.”
With Coby White binge-scoring, Giddey stuffing the stats sheet with All-Star-like numbers and Buzelis demanding starter’s minutes with his ever-improving play, it’s not only different from the Big Three days. It’s also — with all due sensitivity to fans given the team’s amateur-hour local television situation — so much more watchable.
Maybe you wanted a tank job for NBA lottery purposes. It didn’t happen. If the Bulls’ regular-season success against Miami evaporates Friday and the kiddie core gets schooled, the whole thing could feel like a waste.
But there has to be something to be gained here, potentially, doesn’t there?
“I think it’s critical for their development, you know?” coach Billy Donovan said. “I think it’s really important.”
Donovan hasn’t coached a team past the first round of the playoffs since the 2015-16 Thunder made it to the Western Conference finals. Even for a freshly minted Basketball Hall of Famer, the quartet of Final Fours and pair of national championships at Florida are way deep in the rearview.
Doesn’t he miss the feeling of being in the middle of a postseason run?
“Everybody does,” he said. “That’s why you do it. …
“[But] what about the years that you don’t get there? Is it just a failure and just meaningless? Or how do you find value? I’ve found for myself personally, as a coach, an incredible amount of value coaching these guys. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been unbelievable right from Day 1.”
That’s nice, but it’s Day 1 of the play-in tournament we’re interested in now. And then any time and any ground that can be clawed and fought for after that. Or run-and-gunned for.
It’s the Big Spree after all, and it might as well mean something.