There were no Detroits just sitting around, suddenly with a free night and time to fill. No one to call “Next’’ on Sunday.
So the Bulls loaded up the team bus, headed to a Tampa airport, and flew back to Chicago in the least fulfilling road trip of the season, hit once again by the NBA’s version of a rainout.
The league announced Sunday morning that the game between the Bulls and Toronto Raptors – who have been playing their home games in Florida – was postponed because of the coronavirus health and safety protocols.
The fourth game the Bulls have had postponed this season, and the second one this month.
Less than two weeks ago, the Bulls had a scheduled game with Charlotte postponed, but the league was able to make the quick pivot and bring Detroit into town, so that neither team would have games continue to pile up in the second half of the season.
That option wasn’t there in this latest postponement, however, with the Bulls having a back-to-back on the schedule, welcoming Denver into town on Monday.
“I think in this time right now, you have to be adaptable and flexible,’’ Bulls veteran guard Garrett Temple said recently of the league at least trying to move games around if the situation presented itself. It didn’t in this latest one, and that means an already stuffed second-half schedule is going to become an even tougher grind.
The Bulls-Raptors game was the 31st postponed game so far this season, with a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
The Raptors could easily have their next few games postponed going into the break, unable to field the minimum eight players required to play a game, as well as having head coach Nick Nurse in the protocol.
Yet, the NBA is still planning on having an All-Star Game in Atlanta next week, despite the logjam of regular-season games that’s only getting more cluttered. That’s why several players have publicly come out and questioned the All-Star Game still a consideration.
Bulls guard Zach LaVine, who will be making an All-Star appearance for the first time, was not one of them.
Not only does LaVine feel the NBA will keep the experience safe, but wasn’t even bummed about missing out on all the parties and gatherings that happen in a normal All-Star Weekend.
“I’m going to enjoy it,’’ LaVine said. “I’ve been a part of All-Star Weekend a couple of times, been there before, so I get the gist of it. With me man, as long as [family and friends are] there with me, and I always take them there, my close group and family, I’m going to be perfectly fine because that’s who I do it for.’’
The bigger concerns with this Bulls postponement, however? Those fall on the desk of head coach Billy Donovan, who admittedly thought the second half of the schedule was going to be difficult enough, and now that more and more games are being added to it?
Donovan and his coaching staff were already meeting to discuss how to pace the team throughout the second half, and it’s more complicated than just practice and play games. There’s minutes piling up, there’s injured players like Lauri Markkanen and Otto Porter Jr. that need practice time that is suddenly drying up, and there’s concerns that more postponed game are coming.
“I think it’s new for everybody,’’ Donovan said, when discussing how the Bulls will maneuver through the next few months. “So can we find ways to be creative? Can we find ways to maybe do things differently that can be more productive or effective? I think we’ve got to think outside the box in terms of what we’re doing. Because there’s a lot of things that these guys are dealing with.
“Even the rest component is really challenging at times because they have to test in the morning. So a lot of times if they had an off day, they still got to come in the morning and test, and then they’re testing at night. So that’s a component to it as well. So how can we be creative to try to give them some rest to help them recover and at the same point continually progress?
“I think you try to walk that line where you don’t do anything, that’s probably not good. You do too much, that’s not good either. How can you walk that line where you feel like your team is prepared going into games and you’ve gotten a little bit of work in but maybe not too much? And then how do you keep those guys fresh mentally and physically to handle what’s getting ready to come?’’
