{"id":708534,"date":"2026-04-11T23:55:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T23:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/708534\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T23:55:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T23:55:19","slug":"billy-donovan-perhaps-coaching-bulls-for-last-time-faces-mavericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/708534\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Donovan, perhaps coaching Bulls for last time, faces Mavericks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago’s season-ending road clash with the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> on Sunday will be Bulls<\/a> coach Billy Donovan’s 482nd regular-season game on the bench.<\/p>\n

Speculation continues to swirl that it may also be his last, what with the 60-year-old Hall of Fame coach linked to a shift to Chicago’s front office.<\/p>\n

Those whispers gained traction in the wake of the Bulls’ big off-court shakeup on Monday, when executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley were fired after nearly six seasons in charge.<\/p>\n

Only legendary Phil Jackson (738) and Dick Motta (656) have coached more Bulls games than Donovan.<\/p>\n

The Bulls (31-50) will finish in 12th place in the Eastern Conference, missing the playoffs for the fourth straight season.<\/p>\n

Despite their struggles, forward Matas Buzelis threw his full support behind Donovan when speaking after Chicago’s 127-103 loss to the Orlando Magic on Friday.<\/p>\n

“After the GMs got fired, I told (Donovan), ‘I hope you don’t leave. I’m riding with you forever. You’re a cornerstone for my career. I don’t want you to go anywhere,’ ” Buzelis said.<\/p>\n

Buzelis, who returned from a three-game absence with illness, sustained a sprained right ankle against the Magic to join Josh Giddey (left hamstring strain) and Isaac Okoro (quadriceps) on the sideline.<\/p>\n

Giddey, who leads the Bulls in scoring (17.0 points per game), assists (9.1) and rebounds (8.3), will finish the season missing the team’s last five games.<\/p>\n

Tre Jones impressed with 23 points against Orlando, his fourth straight 20-plus outing.<\/p>\n

Dallas (25-56) has endured an even more disappointing campaign, its most recent setback a 139-120 defeat against the host San Antonio Spurs on Friday.<\/p>\n

One shining light in San Antonio was another banner performance from Cooper Flagg, who poured in 33 points.<\/p>\n

One of the features of the game was Flagg going basket-for-basket with Spurs superstar Victor Webanyama, who racked up 40 points in 26 minutes.<\/p>\n

“I thought Coop had an incredible game and set the tone early for us,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. “You look at Victor — and he’s been in the league (three years), he was also Rookie of the Year — understanding now he’s one of the best players in the world. To see what Coop did … he was finding guys, he was scoring the ball, he was competing at a very high level. That just shows the leadership of our rookie and it’s good to see this late in the season.”<\/p>\n

Flagg’s 21.2 scoring average tops the Mavs and also leads all rookies, while his average of 4.6 assists per game ranks second among first-year players. He only trails teammate Ryan Nembhard (5.0 apg).<\/p>\n

Flagg’s jump shot has turned into a more consistent weapon as his debut season has unfolded.<\/p>\n

“Just being aggressive, getting to my spots,” he said when asked about the evolution of his jumper. “I’ve just got more and more confident as the year’s gone on … (I’m) learning a ton. Just being selective with taking the shots that I want to take, and living with the outcome of those shots and not letting the defense dictate what I do.”<\/p>\n

Chicago won this season’s previous meeting with Dallas, 125-107 on Jan. 10 at home. Flagg was held to 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting.<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago’s season-ending road clash with the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday will be Bulls coach Billy Donovan’s 482nd regular-season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,329,686,149,4057,166,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-708534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chicago-bulls","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-dallasmavericks","13":"tag-mavericks","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116388778715515375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708534","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=708534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}