Bulls reserves like Tomas Satoransky and Chandler Hutchison used the postponement of Wednesday’s game and extra practice time to work on getting their conditioning back.
The starters used it to try to continue getting in sync with one another.
As for Billy Donovan, the extra days off were a bit more complicated for him, as he spent the week kicking the tires on possibly making changes to his rotation, specifically the starting lineup.
In the end, the coach decided the status quo is the status quo.
Lulls by the starting unit in back-to-back losses to the Lakers and Celtics had Donovan stating earlier this week that he would at least evaluate the mix of both his starters and reserves to decide if he was maximizing both units. On Friday, however, he explained why it will remain business as usual with the starters, minus a center spot left vacated by Wendell Carter Jr.’s quad injury.
“Our bench has played well,’’ Donovan said. “And I think with Thad [Young] and Otto [Porter] and Garrett [Temple], just their experience, their years in the league, I think we have to be smart managing their minutes, especially with the stretch we have coming up — it’s 17 games in 31 days. I think it would be very difficult for those guys to handle an enormous amount of minutes night in and night out.
“That being said, when they come off the bench, you’re kind of shortening the game a little bit so to speak for them. We have the ability to keep them a little bit fresher coming down the stretch. But I think that as we get a little bit of a larger sample size with Wendell being out, you know, is that possibly moving somebody into the starting lineup or rotation or what we can do to best maximize the group, I think we have to look at that. But there’s been nothing that’s done like significantly right now that would necessarily be a change.’’
That means when the Bulls host Portland on Saturday, it’s back to Coby White, Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen, Patrick Williams, and seemingly getting the first shot to replace Carter in that starting unit, Daniel Gafford.
How long those five keep it that way will depend on them.
Because of Markkanen’s ability to also play the five, Donovan said he would have options in his frontcourt, beginning with Young playing the four.
“There may be matchups for us where playing Lauri and Thad together, we may not have enough length and physical size and presence up front,’’ Donovan said. “There’ll be some lineups that we can do it. There may be some lineups that maybe we need Gaff out there, we need Cris [Felicio] out there. It could be a variety of different things, but I think that we’re going to have to be prepared to have significant and different rotations based on matchups and who we’re playing against.’’
That’s why the versatility of the Bulls bench is about to be tested.
Satoransky and Hutchison missed weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus last month, and while Satoransky has played in three straight games since returning, he admittedly needed the long week to continue getting his legs under him.
“Obviously, we want to play games,’’ Satoransky said. “Nobody likes when games are postponed, but personally for me, it was really good just to have a couple of good practices. On Wednesday, we basically played the whole practice.
“That helps you with stamina. That helps with your rhythm. My conditioning got much better, and you get that feel back. So I’m glad that I could work with the team like that for a couple of days. You don’t have that many moments during the season.’’
