LaVine sits out vs. Cavs as knee soreness returns
The Bulls had two days off before facing Cleveland on Saturday, so it could have been a chance for Zach LaVine to give his left knee some rest.
Instead, LaVine was sidelined by knee soreness, marking the first game he's missed since visiting a specialist in California before the all-star break.
"I don't know if it's necessarily concerning or not, the fact that he's had two days," Bulls coach Billy Donovan said before the contest. "It's just that there's some discomfort there and the feeling was it was better to take this game and see where he's at tomorrow and once we go out West."
LaVine missed five games in January after landing wrong on the knee against Golden State on Jan. 14, then sat out three more before the break. He also missed a couple games due to back spasms in between.
In the seven games since the break, LaVine averaged 24.4 points, 4.6 assists and shot 48% from the field, so his play hasn't really suffered, although sometimes he looks more comfortable moving around than others.
"After the Detroit game, I wanted to see how he was feeling," Donovan said. "I think the feeling was to see if we can get him back to ground zero where he's feeling a little bit better.
"Everything I've gotten from the doctors is that they feel totally comfortable with him playing. There's obviously a team of doctors that are involved in this, one of the doctors is a guy that handled his ACL surgery several years ago. There's a lot of people involved that are making these decisions."
Caruso will return:
With Alex Caruso returning to action Saturday after recovering from a broken right wrist, the Bulls lost an assistant coach.
During games when he's been injured and in street clothes, Caruso is constantly on his feet giving advice to his teammates.
"I just try to do my best," Caruso said. "I want to win games. I want to win games when I'm playing, I want to win games when I'm not playing. I can't just show up and sit there. It's part of my DNA.
"If there's a game going on and I think there's something important to be said that's going to help us win, I'm going to say it."
Caruso also said he appreciated younger Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu and Coby White being receptive to his advice.
"There are obviously times where I'm sure they didn't want to hear my voice but I still said stuff anyway," he said. "Glad to be back on the performing side rather than the coaching side."
Donovan looks back:
Friday marked the two-year anniversary of the "Night Sports Shut Down." Billy Donovan was getting ready to coach Oklahoma City in a home game against Utah when it was canceled just before tipoff on news of Rudy Gobert's positive COVID test. The league and entire sports world shut down shortly after.
"That whole night was amazing, not knowing what was really going on," Donovan said Friday. "We had people sequestered off, they shut down parts of the building, they totally isolated all of the Utah players, we had to leave through back channels to get out of the building.
"How naive I was, I was like, 'All right guys listen, we didn't get a chance to play tonight, we'll practice tomorrow and we'll scrimmage.' I never saw our team again until like July 1. The whole experience was totally crazy. As we've gotten more of a handle on things, it's good to see that we're starting to get a little more back to normal."
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