It was yet another five-minute stint for Lonzo Ball on Tuesday.
A quick six points on 2-for-3 shooting from long range, an assist, and his usual solid defense to help the Bulls hold down the first-quarter lead over the Pelicans.
Easy to start taking for granite, which is crazy considering Ball missed two-and-a-half seasons and went through a left knee procedure that no professional athlete had successfully come back from.
Now he’s becoming a mainstay off the bench, and his minutes restrictions are slowly getting loosened into the mid-20s.
What won’t change for the immediate future, however?
The restrictions on the back-to-backs. Coach Billy Donovan made that clear before the game with the Pelicans, letting it be known that Ball would sit out the Wednesday game with the Hawks.
Still, a pretty remarkable story.
“I didn’t know what to expect (of Ball) because a lot of the workouts that I watched were one-on-one, and I didn’t see him play five-on-five,” Donovan said, reflecting back to the beginning of fall camp. “I got pretty optimistic when training camp started. I was able to see right then and there, he was running and doing the things he was doing, and he needed to get his timing back.
“I really felt, not the level he was before the injury, ‘But if this guy continues on the path he’s on right now, and he gets his timing back, he can be a very productive player for us.’ That gave me a lot of hope.”
What’s been even nicer for Ball, Donovan and the Bulls is between games the veteran guard is still an active participant in practices, walk-throughs and shootarounds.
There was speculation that Ball might be one of those players that would play a game and then be completely shut down in between games to get his rehab work in and his regular maintenance, but Donovan said that hasn’t been the case at all.
“When we’ve had practices, he’s been a part of the self-regulation, but he gets into the five on five,” Donovan said. “He stays on the maintenance part, the things he has to do with his lifting, keeping the legs strong, but it’s not like he’s playing in the game and we’re like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got all this maintenance to do just to get him back on the court.’ That has not happened. With the back-to-backs we certainly don’t want to get him to that place.”
Happy returns
Ayo Dosunmu missed his 10th game with a right calf injury, but made enough progress the last two days in scrimmages that he should return to the court Wednesday against the Hawks.
“His ramp-up over these last four or five days has been good, and he’s responded really well,” Donovan said. “He was a full participant in shootaround (Tuesday), but he’s responded very well. The feeling is he’ll play if everything continues on the path it’s on right now.”
Dosunmu was averaging 14.2 points per game on 51.5% shooting from the field in his nine games in the month of December.
Captain obvious
Bulls forward Patrick Williams remains very self-aware that when he plays well the Bulls are a different team. The issue remains him getting to that point where he’s consistently playing well rather than just flashes.
“It makes us a better team,” Williams said, when discussing the solid games he has put together this season. “I think we all kind of feel that, and I think you guys (the media) feel that too. That’s why you keep asking me about it. I’m trying to figure it out too.”