Bulls vs. Timberwolves Game Preview and Open Thread

The Bulls are in game 2 of their tank-season, looking to DNP Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday again as they look towards ‘player development’. If it turns out they’re planning on doing this the rest of the season, I am honestly curious if a team has this brazenly and clumsily sabotaged healthy players. Other teams have faked injury, even the Suns last year as they cited some sports science to assure they were helping prevent future injury for Eric Bledsoe. The Hawks are outright buying out veterans like Marco Bellinelli and Ersan Illysova, though in that case both were approaching free agency whereas the Bulls veterans have 1 more year left on their contracts.

They’re on the road to face the Timberwolves, and may have found themselves a winnable scenario as Jimmy Butler suffered a scary looking knee injury just last night. The Wolves then had plane troubles and it delayed their arrival for Butler to have an MRI (not to mention tonight’s game). Ultimately it’s relatively good news for Jimmy, as the injury announced was ‘merely’ a meniscus tear, and not the ACL as obviously-feared. Nevertheless, Butler won’t be playing tonight.

The Bulls won their version of NBA Finals in a fun win when they hosted the TWolves a couple weeks ago. Zach LaVine had an amazing clutch performance in that game, scoring 35 and getting the win after a Jimmy Butler miss held his own scoring total at 38.

Time: 8pm

TV: WGN