{"id":510952,"date":"2026-01-02T02:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/510952\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T02:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:28:15","slug":"bulls-notes-starting-lineup-white-trade-deadline-buzelis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/510952\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulls Notes: Starting Lineup, White, Trade Deadline, Buzelis"},"content":{"rendered":"

As his team navigates three significant injuries<\/a>, Bulls coach Billy Donovan unveiled a new-look starting lineup in Wednesday\u2019s win over New Orleans, writes Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times<\/a> (subscription required). Donovan went big to match up with the Pelicans, using Tre Jones<\/a> as his lone guard alongside Isaac Okoro<\/a>, Nikola Vucevic<\/a>, Matas Buzelis<\/a> and Jalen Smith<\/a>. With Josh Giddey<\/a> and Coby White<\/a> unavailable to run the offense, Okoro led the way with a season-high 24 points in a 134-118 victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows their role on this team,\u201d Okoro said. \u201cNo one is too big-headed or out there trying to be a superstar on this team. Everyone knows their roles, knows what they need to do to impact winning. So as long as guys know that, I think we\u2019ll be in a good place. We have enough here. Just play with energy, play with a high spirit, do the things we can control. Of course, not having bodies out there is bad, but we have enough. Control what we can control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donovan used 10 players in total with Patrick Williams<\/a>, Dalen Terry<\/a>, Jevon Carter<\/a>, Kevin Huerter<\/a> and Ayo Dosunmu<\/a> coming off the bench. Getting contributions throughout the roster is going to be important as the Bulls face a stretch of six games in nine days, starting on Friday. Cowley notes that roles and responsibilities could change from night to night depending on the opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a results-oriented business, but I look at it as a 48-minute game,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cCan we play to an identity covering for each other on defense, helping each other on offense, moving the basketball, playing the right way, not turning it over? To me, there are certain things we can do as a basketball team. Are we good enough to actually overcome and go win games? It remains to be seen, but I know if we don\u2019t do those things, we have no chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more from Chicago:<\/p>\n

Cowley points out that White began to feel tightness in his right calf after he played in back-to-back games over the weekend for this first time this season. The medical staff might keep him out of those situations once he returns. \u2018\u2018That\u2019s been a topic of conversation,\u2019\u2019 Donovan said. \u2018\u2018That was the first back-to-back he played. He came out of it fine, but they are trying to go through every minute detail that he does every single day.\u2019\u2019
\nIn a separate story<\/a> from Cowley, Donovan discusses the \u2018\u201830,000-foot view\u2019\u2019 that executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas has of the team\u2019s injury situation as opposed to his mandate to try to win every game. Donovan also indicated that the Bulls don\u2019t appear to be close to making any deals with the deadline five weeks away. \u2018\u2018In the conversations I\u2019ve had with Arturas, we have not talked about the trade deadline at this point in time at all,\u2019\u2019 Donovan told reporters. \u2018\u2018I would say that I don\u2019t know how other teams evaluate it. The guys you are bringing up, are they in contract years? Is there a dive they do in their history? Some of these guys, you\u2019re right, have been set back with some injuries. I don\u2019t know necessarily how much it does or doesn\u2019t hurt.\u201d
\nBuzelis talks about the thrill of draft day in the latest edition of \u201cJourney to the CHI\u201d on Chicago Sports Network (Twitter link<\/a>). \u201cAs soon as I found out the Bulls were picking me \u2026 It was honestly the best day of my life,\u201d the second-year forward said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As his team navigates three significant injuries, Bulls coach Billy Donovan unveiled a new-look starting lineup in Wednesday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[4102,7,3363,963,15697,3891,2291,6299,4103,973,3853,6140,6277],"class_list":{"0":"post-510952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-ayo-dosunmu","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-billy-donovan","11":"tag-coby-white","12":"tag-dalen-terry","13":"tag-isaac-okoro","14":"tag-jalen-smith","15":"tag-jevon-carter","16":"tag-kevin-huerter","17":"tag-matas-buzelis","18":"tag-nikola-vucevic","19":"tag-patrick-williams","20":"tag-tre-jones"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115823149722317661","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510952","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=510952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}