Guard Tre Jones (sprained left foot) is still in his two-week recovery window, but his return date is getting a little iffy.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan said Jones was still in a walking boot and experiencing pain.
“The biggest thing is going to end up being, or at least the hope is, that he does come out of the boot and is pain-free,” Donovan said Saturday. “If he still has some pain after the two weeks, I don’t know what the doctor’s recommendation would be — does he stay in the boot, does he get out of it? They want to see him walking without a boot without any pain.
“It has subsided from where it was. He has the boot on all day, and then he’s not sleeping with it, but they want to keep that foot pretty immobile for at least those two weeks.”
Jones was injured March 20 in the Bulls’ road victory over the Kings, and the initial hope was he’d get out of the window pain-free and be ready for the last week of the regular season and into the play-in tourney.
That might still be the case, but the minimal progress puts the timetable in jeopardy.
And Jones isn’t the only injured Bull hitting speed bumps, either.
The hope coming out of the team’s six-city trip was that guard Lonzo Ball (right wrist) would be ready to go this week.
Ball quickly dimmed that expectation Wednesday, saying he needed another week because he wasn’t pain-free on his shooting follow-through.
Donovan provided an update before the game against the Mavericks and said they likely won’t have clarity until the middle of the week after the back-to-back games Monday and Tuesday.
“Still trying to get past that last bit of pain that’s preventing him from following through,” Donovan said. “It’s just been slow. We’re hopeful next week, so to speak. He’s out there running. The biggest issue is trying to get him playing a little bit. He’s done enough on the bike and running, but he’s going to need some playing, so I think maybe next week coming off the back-to-back, we do have a practice day that we can get in, so hopefully he’ll be able to be a part of that.”
Ball has missed the last 14 games. He missed 15 games at the start of the season after injuring the same wrist.
Improved shooting
Donovan didn’t love the fundamentals on swingman Dalen Terry’s jump shot coming out of Arizona, and neither did Terry.
Now in his third season, Terry has put a lot of work into fixing his shot, and the numbers are starting to reflect that, especially from long range.
Terry was a 25.9% shooter from three-point range as a rookie, dipped to 23% last season and entered Saturday at 36.8%, including 42.3% in March.
“Fundamentally, it’s in a good place,” Terry said. “I put in so many hours with it, and I’m just glad that all that work is starting to show. I’m just trying to keep going, keep working on it to make sure that I can become one of those guys you can’t leave open.”
Boxed out
It’s rare that an NBA coach uses a box-and-one zone, but Donovan has used principles of that defense the last month or so.
“The matchup and communicating is really a high priority,” Donovan said. “Some of it is just to break flow and tempo if we feel teams are getting into a pretty good rhythm, if there’s something that’s really causing us a problem.”