Tre Jones was still in his two-week recovery window for a left foot sprain, but there’s no doubt that the runway for a return continued losing landing area.
According to Bulls coach Billy Donovan, the guard was still in a walking boot and still experiencing pain.
“The biggest thing is going to end up being, or at least the hope is, that he does come out of the boot and he is pain-free,” Donovan said Saturday. “If he still has some pain after the two weeks, I don’t know what the doctor’s recommendation would be – does he stay in the boot, does he get out of it? They want to see him walking without a boot without any pain.
“Certainly, it’s subsided from where it was. He has the boot on all day long and then he’s not sleeping with it, but they want to keep that foot pretty immobile for at least those two weeks.”
Jones suffered the injury in the March 20 win in Sacramento, and the initial hope was he’d get out of the window pain free and be ready for the final week of the regular season and into the play-in tournament.
That could still be the case, but the fact that the progress has been minimal does put it in jeopardy.
Not the only medical progress hitting speed bumps, either.
The hope coming out of the six-city West Coast trip was that Lonzo Ball (right wrist) would be ready to go this week.
Ball quickly dimmed that hope on Wednesday, saying he needed another week because he wasn’t pain-free on his shooting follow-through.
Donovan gave an update before the game with Dallas, however, and said they likely won’t have clarity until mid-week, after the back-to-back on Monday and Tuesday.
“Still trying to get past that last bit of pain that’s preventing him from following through,” Donovan said. “It’s just been slow. We’re hopeful next week, so to speak. He’s out there running. The biggest issue is trying to get him playing a little bit. He’s done enough on the bike and running, but he’s going to need some playing, so I think maybe next week coming off the back-to-back we do have a practice day that we can get in, so hopefully he’ll be able to be part of that.”
Ball has now missed the last 14 games, after the same wrist injury cost him 15 games at the start of the season.
Shooting frenzy
Donovan didn’t love the fundamentals of Dalen Terry’s jump shot coming out of Arizona, and truth be told, neither did Terry.
The third-year player has put a lot of work into fixing his shot, and the numbers are starting to show that, especially from long range.
Terry was a 25.9% shooter from three as a rookie, dipped down to 23% last season, and entered Saturday’s game against the Mavs at 36.8% this year, including 42.3% in the month of March.
“Fundamentally, it’s in a good place,” Terry said of his shot. “I put in so many hours with it and I’m just glad that all that work is starting to show. I’m just trying to keep going, keep working on it to make sure that I can become one of those guys you can’t leave open.”
Boxed out
It’s rare that an NBA coach uses a box-and-one zone at this level, but Donovan admittedly uses principles of that defense the last month or so.
“The matchup and communicating is really a high priority,” Donovan said of that look. “Some of it is just to break flow and tempo if we feel teams are getting into a pretty good rhythm, if there’s something that’s really causing us a problem.”