Bulls’ remaining schedule rife with playoff implications

Monday’s game came chock full of playoff implications.

In fact, for the remainder of the regular season — which is six games following Monday’s, the Bulls and the Hawks will be jockeying for positioning in the play-in tournament.

“Coming down to these final games, last two weeks of the season all these games are critical,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “Certainly you felt that way in the Minnesota game.”

Donovan’s team got off to a hot start against the Timberwolves, Sunday, scoring 33 first quarter points. Their burst in the first frame and overall aggressiveness in the game points to the conundrum of this Bulls team. They have once again been inconsistent, beating teams that based on records one could argue they shouldn’t.

But in the last 10 days, the Bulls have also lost to the Houston Rockets and Washington Wizards, both are teams scraping the bottom of league standings.

The Bulls had a two and a half game lead on the Hawks ahead of Monday’s matchup. The biggest implication on the remaining slate of games is on whether or not they will maintain home court advantage — which goes to the 9th and 7th place teams in both conferences — in the first play-in game.

Regardless of homecourt advantage, it’s likely at this point that the Bulls and Hawks will meet in the play-in tournament. After beating the Hawks twice already this season, the have control if tiebreaker rules were necessary to implement.

“Probability wise there’s a liklihood we see eachother again,” Donovan said. “All these games are important in terms of the competitiveness. I was pleased coming out of the Minnesota game just because of what happened. You knew they were going to make a run. I thought when they got up the guys did a great job of making the plays necessary to regain control of the game.”

Julian Phillips and Javonte Green

Donovan once again didn’t have a timetable for Phillips return from a right foot injury. He’s still wearing a walking boot as a “protective measure,” Donovan said.

There’s been improvement in terms of how his foot is feeling when the boot went on but he’ll still need to be re-evaluated once he gets back on the court. This brings up the issue of running out of adequate time for a ramp up period.

The 10-day contract that Green signed March 23 expires Monday.

He was not with the Bulls Monday night as he attended to a personal family matter, Donovan said.

Donovan expects to have a conversation about Green’s status and whether or not they will sign him to another 10-day contract with the Bulls front office following Monday night’s game.

Reunion

Donovan previously mentioned that injured players Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball and Patrick Williams would all be rejoining the team this week.

All three have been rehabing from their various injuries away from the team.

“I saw Lonzo today,” Donovan said. “Patrick and Zach were flying in today.”

UConn attempting to mimick Donovan’s Florida Gators

Donovan led the Gators to back-to-back titles in 2006-07 and no program has accomplished the feat since. UConn is on a collison course with that history, decimating teams in the Tournament.

Donovan weighed in on how the portal is impacting today’s college game 

“When I was coaching in college if you decided to transfer you had to sit out a year,” Donovan said. “So, it’s a totally different environment. For us we had the same core group come back two years in a row.”

Dan Hurley had two starters from his 2022-23 title team return for the 2023-24 season.