Bulls’ Hamilton eager to get rid of shoulder brace

Richard Hamilton logged 34 minutes and scored a game-high 22 points in Monday’s loss to the Wizards.

That’s the most playing time he has seen since 36 minutes at Miami on Jan. 29, and he equaled his season high for points, which was set Jan. 23 against New Jersey.

As he gets more comfortable, the next step for Hamilton is removing the brace he wears on his bruised right shoulder, an injury that caused him to miss 14 games.

“Hopefully I can take it off,” he said. “I don’t want it on. Still, a lot of my shots are short. I want to take it off now. But it’s one of those things, if I take it off and I get hit again and something happens … I think I’ll take it off soon.”

Hamilton took a rough spill early in Monday’s contest. He hit the floor hard but actually landed face mask first, so at least he had some protection.

“I got scratched in the eye, too,” he said. “But it is what it is. It’s part of the game.”

Korver won’t coast:

The Bulls have five games left in the regular season and are 2 games ahead of Miami in the loss column. After Monday’s disappointing loss to Washington, Kyle Korver remained confident.

“After the New York game (April 8), it was like the world is crashing down on us,” he said. “Then we won two big games (against the Knicks and Miami) and everything was amazing. We just have to get back to playing good basketball.

“We don’t need to coast into the end of the season. So we’ve got to win our games. Let’s go win them. We can win every single one. We’ve got to get healthy. We have to get some timing; guys are beat up.”

Jobs left undone:

Coach Tom Thibodeau had plenty of advice for his team after the home loss to Washington on Monday.

“When you’re on the floor, everyone has a responsibility to do their job,” he said. “Everyone has to do their job. Do your job.

“The low turnovers is a big part of winning. Defense, rebounding and low turnovers, those are the three musts every night. That has to resonate with us. We’re making the game hard right now.”

Kyle Korver was asked what his coach meant by telling people to do their job.

“What makes us a good team is we’re a lot of pieces that fit really well together,” he said. “We all bring something different and we all need to do our jobs and do what it is we do.”