The NBA announced Tuesday that Bulls rookie Matas Buzelis will participate in the slam-dunk contest during All-Star Weekend on Feb. 14-16 in San Francisco.
On the same night, Buzelis announced he has arrived.
Building on his recent increase in minutes, Buzelis turned in a breakout game against the Heat, finishing with a career-high 24 points on 10-for-10 shooting (4-for-4 from three-point range) in the Bulls’ 133-124 victory.
It wasn’t exactly what a tanking team needed, but considering the Bulls (22-29) had a chance to watch their 20-year-old forward play a season-high 31 minutes, they weren’t exactly going to stand in the way of progress.
And as far as calling it a breakout game, the always-confident Buzelis wasn’t into labels.
‘‘I’ve honestly always had that,’’ Buzelis said of some of the drives he made at the rim. ‘‘It’s just about displaying it now. I’ve always had the point-guard moves.
‘‘My confidence right now is high, but you’ve got to stay humble. My dad always tells me the sun comes up tomorrow, so you’ve got to go back to work. You guys can call it [a breakout game], it doesn’t matter to me. Breakout, I’m going to play the same way every night.’’
What was also impressive was that it was Buzelis who kept the Bulls in the game until they could strike. And strike they did, outscoring the Heat 39-21 in the fourth quarter, led by 12 points from guard Josh Giddey. The Bulls also didn’t have a turnover in the quarter.
Giddey finished with 24 points, and guard Coby White chipped in 22.
Been there, done that
Coach Billy Donovan compared going through a rebuild with the Bulls to his days when he was coaching Florida to back-to-back NCAA championships.
‘‘I know it’s a totally different situation, but from a coaching perspective, it’s very, very similar,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘You know when you have Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer, I think it was the first time in the history of the NBA that three players from one team went in the top 10 [of the draft]. And when those guys leave — rebuild, retool, whatever word you want to use — you are starting over. In college, that’s what I dealt with all the time.’’