{"id":638459,"date":"2026-03-04T08:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/638459\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T08:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:31:23","slug":"chicago-bulls-lose-116-108-to-the-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/638459\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bulls lose 116-108 to the Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a handful of minutes in the second half of Tuesday\u2019s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Chicago Bulls<\/a> seemed to be facing a worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n

It began when Josh Giddey came up limping after rolling his ankle with barely a minute left in the third quarter. The guard tried his best to play through the pain \u2014 attempting a 3-pointer after hobbling out to the perimeter \u2014 but quickly accepted a sub from Matas Buzelis.<\/p>\n

Giddey barely had time to make it to the locker room before his replacement suffered the same fate. Buzelis rolled his ankle while stepping on a Thunder player\u2019s shoe under the basket, immediately coming up with a limp. He managed to square up for a few seconds of defense before the Bulls were whistled for a foul, giving Buzelis an opportunity to awkwardly hustle his way to the locker room.<\/p>\n

By the time Buzelis rolled his ankle, the Bulls were already trailing the reigning NBA champions by 16 points. Giddey returned for a brief 5-minute, 28-second stint in the fourth quarter before he reached the ceiling of his playing time restriction for a lingering hamstring strain, forcing coach Billy Donovan to pull the plug for good.<\/p>\n

But Buzelis never returned to the court, leaving the Bulls to face a looming concern about yet another key injury as they prepare for a five-game road trip on the West Coast.<\/p>\n

After the game, Buzelis said he was hopeful to return for Thursday\u2019s game in Phoenix. The forward has been notably hardy in his early tenure with the Bulls, playing every game of his sophomore season. Buzelis said the Bulls had not set a recovery plan in the initial hour following the injury, but said the pain wasn\u2019t \u201creally bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys know I don\u2019t like missing games so I think I\u2019ll be ready,\u201d Buzelis said. \u201cI want to play every game so we\u2019ll see how it feels and we\u2019ll go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos: Oklahoma City Thunder 116, Chicago Bulls 108<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Bulls are already playing without five key players<\/a> \u2014 Zach Collins (season-ending toe surgery), Jalen Smith (right calf), Patrick Williams (quad strain), Jaden Ivey (knee) and Anfernee Simons (wrist) \u2014 as they attempt to navigate the final stretch of the season. But the availability of Buzelis is the key to this period, which is designed to give the forward a higher volume of reps to supplement his growth as a future centerpiece for the Bulls roster.<\/p>\n

The Thunder weren\u2019t faring any better, playing without reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams. Despite shooting less than 24% from 3-point range, Oklahoma City held off the Bulls with relative ease due to balanced scoring from rotation players like Jared McCain (20 points) and Isaiah Joe (19 points).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a handful of minutes in the second half of Tuesday\u2019s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,329,973,6,446,310,475,179,3966,3965,209,312,10834],"class_list":{"0":"post-638459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chicago-bulls","10":"tag-matas-buzelis","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nba-basketball","13":"tag-oklahoma","14":"tag-oklahoma-city","15":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","16":"tag-oklahomacity","17":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","18":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","19":"tag-thunder","20":"tag-united-center"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116169978257446648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638459","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=638459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}