Bulls keep pace with Bucks by dropping close one to Grizzlies

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It’s not as though Bulls coach Billy Donovan still is searching for some deep meaning as the season winds down, but he didn’t have to look very far Saturday in case he was.

First and foremost, Donovan still holds winning games and competing as his top priorities. Then there’s what happened earlier in the day in Milwaukee.

Hours before the Bulls fell to the Grizzlies 125-124 when guard Collin Sexton’s potential game-winner was ruled to have come after the final horn sounded, the Bucks were run out of their own building by the Spurs.

That meant the Bulls could have jumped them in the standings and lost position in the draft lottery, but it wasn’t meant to be.

With the Bulls trailing by a point with four seconds left, guard Tre Jones got his hands on the Grizzlies’ inbound pass, dribbled up the court and passed to Sexton, who got the shot off but not in time.

‘‘When Collin got it, he had to kind of knife his way through, so he had to hold it a little bit,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘I think in hindsight, if Tre was looking back on it, he’s thinking he should have shot it. But I thought both of them were trying to make the right play.’’

Beyond the team concept that caught Donovan’s eye, however, there were the individual performances — good and bad. Matas Buzelis provided the good, finishing with 29 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks, his eighth game this season with at least 20 points and three blocks. Only Spurs standout Victor Wembanyama has done it more often (22 times).

Not that Buzelis’ performance came as a surprise. He wasn’t happy with seeing the Bulls (29-45) officially eliminated from the playoffs Friday and vowed he wasn’t just going to lie down with a few weeks left.

‘‘Just keep fighting, man,’’ Buzelis said of his mindset. ‘‘You don’t want to go out quitting. You have to finish; you have to finish what you started. We’ll come back stronger than ever [next year]. I’m going to work really hard this summer, but you keep battling. I’m playing to win.’’

It would have been nice if that attitude somehow started to rub off on forward Patrick Williams, who was again more enigma than anything else. With the Bulls short-handed in the frontcourt, this game had Williams’ name on it. He could have started to establish something in a season of disappointment. Instead, he basically was outplayed by seldom-used rookie Lachlan Olbrich.

It wasn’t exactly what Donovan was hoping for. He was asked whether it felt as though Williams has resigned himself to whom he is as a player and doesn’t care about reaching a once-high ceiling.

‘‘The two guys that can move the needle for us the most on the offensive glass are Matas and Patrick,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘And I talked to Patrick about this in terms of his offensive-rebounding numbers. Since we talked, it has been better. We have to keep staying with that part of it.’’

That’s the issue with Williams: In his sixth season, he still needs to be reminded of the basics.

‘‘I think he’s a very good team guy,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘He’s not one of those guys that’s going to be upset or mad. Like, does he want to play 35 minutes a night? Yeah, but he’s not going to do it in a way where he’s disruptive to the group and drawing attention to himself. That’s definitely not who he is.’’