Head coach Billy Donovan<\/a> has emphasized the importance of getting White breaks whenever possible, especially as he prepares for his first-ever postseason as the primary scorer for the Bulls.<\/p>\nAnd players like Huerter, Giddey and Vu\u010devi\u0107 have been playing through minor physical tweaks and knocks throughout the past month, lending credence to the importance of taking a breather Tuesday before a must-win game.<\/p>\n
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But did the Bulls put too much emphasis on Wednesday\u2019s game against Miami \u2014 and potentially miss an opportunity to climb even higher in the Eastern Conference standings?<\/p>\n
The Bulls weren\u2019t the only short-handed team on Tuesday. The Cavaliers also held out star Donovan Mitchell \u2014 who is averaging 24 points and five assists in the sixth All-Star season of his career \u2014 after he suffered a left ankle sprain over the weekend. This considerable absence could have given the Bulls a golden opportunity to jockey for a top spot in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n
Maneuvering all the way to the seventh seed would require several strokes of luck, including the Bulls finishing the season on a 7-0 run while both the Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic simultaneously collapsed. But moving up to the eighth seed is much more tangible for the Bulls, who are now 1 1\/2 games back from the Hawks.<\/p>\n
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If they gained the eighth seed, the Bulls could advance with a single win \u2014 the ultimate goal for a team that has lost the second game of the play-in tournament for two consecutive seasons. White attributed these losses to the team\u2019s inability to adjust after the emotional overflow of winning the initial game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can we come down from that emotional high and do it again two days later and be able to have that same attention to detail, that same physicality, that same compete level?\u201d White said. \u201cWe got to get past the first game in general, but how can we bring that competitiveness in both of those situations? Because it\u2019s a single-game elimination. It\u2019s just like March Madness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the Bulls made the safe \u2014 and advisable \u2014 decision. While their performance in past play-in tournaments is clearly a concern, the Bulls also have to weigh the importance of positioning themselves for the second game of a back-to-back.<\/p>\n
The Bulls have a 4-8 record when playing on no rest this season. Some of these losses were circumstantial due to the strength of the opponent, but it\u2019s clear this team struggles to produce the depth and consistency necessary to log games on consecutive nights. And if the Bulls drop a loss on Wednesday, it could plunge them all the way back into the 10th seed.<\/p>\n
Still, the Bulls will have to wait until Wednesday to see if the added day of rest is enough to secure the ninth seed \u2014 and avoid another play-in trip to Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Bulls aren\u2019t prone to load management. It\u2019s become a point of pride over the past few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[208,7,920,919,329,3824,193,963,3213,864,10699,965,4103,189,6,3853,76,6140],"class_list":{"0":"post-35946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-bulls","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chicago-bulls","13":"tag-chicagobulls","14":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","15":"tag-coby-white","16":"tag-demar-derozan","17":"tag-donovan-mitchell","18":"tag-jahmir-young","19":"tag-josh-giddey","20":"tag-kevin-huerter","21":"tag-miami-heat","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-nikola-vucevic","24":"tag-orlando-magic","25":"tag-patrick-williams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114514841338681540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}