Bulls' Matas Buzelis talks lessons learned from the cold war with Luka

LOS ANGELES — The show wasn’t close to being over after the game and the dragon wasn’t done breathing fire.

Luka Doncic still looked a bit perturbed that a 21-year-old second-year player dared start engaging in trash talk with him, and even with his Lakers winning the game and Doncic finishing with 51 points, that’s likely why he continued throwing jabs.

“Someone started talking to me, so that woke me up,” Doncic told reporters late Thursday night after Los Angeles dismantled the Bulls.

Asked who it was, and Doncic knew exactly who it was, the guard instead chose the showmanship route, looking down at the scoresheet in front of him like he didn’t know the player’s name. Or that the player was so beneath him that he didn’t bother to know his name.

“Uh, Matas,” Doncic replied as he looked up from the piece of paper. “Buzelis.”

“I was surprised, I was shocked,” he continued. “I’m not going to say what he said but if I would have said it, I would have gotten a tech.”

In the NBA, like in life, there’s two sides to every story, so the he said-he said was just getting started.

Buzelis was told that he was being painted as the culprit in this and went on the defensive.

“Is that what he said?” Buzelis fired back, when told about the Doncic accusations. “Yeah, I’d rather not say what I said, but he said something to me first, so that’s why I had to respond. I’m not going to say what he said either, but I felt like I was responding to what he said.

“I don’t back down from anybody no matter who you are, and I took on the challenge and didn’t execute.”

Not entirely true, as Buzelis did have the Bulls within five points at the half and he did have 17 points of his own. The problem for the youngster, however, was if you are going to try and slay the dragon, body blows don’t work.

Buzelis went 1-of-8 in the second half and scored just five points. Doncic? He put up 27 points in the second half, going 5-of-7 from three-point range and at one point mocking Buzelis with a hand gesture of “keep chirping.”

That’s why when Buzelis was asked afterward what he took away from the experience, he replied, “Um, probably not to talk to him.”

Hopefully that’s not the case. Not that Buzelis should try and confront every bully on the playground, but this five-game road trip has been huge for the development piece of his career.

Entering Friday’s final against the Clippers, Buzelis has averaged 23.7 points per game since a heart-to-heart with coach Billy Donovan on Feb. 23, averaging 9.3 three-point attempts and 4.9 free-throw attempts per game over that time.

Huge strides from this time last season.

Now factor in the maturation that comes in showing no back down to opposing elite players — both physically on the court and the mental warfare that Doncic-Buzelis turned into — and the Bulls can start feeling better about Buzelis being a foundation piece moving forward.

“LeBron (James), Doncic, these guys are all-NBA, Hall of Fame players,” Donovan said. “Matas is a young guy. I thought he leaned into the challenge. I don’t know about all the chirping or what happened there. Those guys are all competitive.

“Leaning into that stuff you gotta be able to back it up and go out there and compete and play. Physically and mentally you gotta compete. Doncic does it against everybody.”

Maybe Thursday was just Buzelis’ turn. Hopefully there’s a rematch next season, and maybe, just maybe, Buzelis can get the best of the dragon.