The Bulls have played short-handed for all but nine games this season, but Monday will present a new test.
Carlos Boozer didn’t travel on Sunday with the team to Memphis, meaning Monday’s matinee will feature this season’s first game without Boozer and Joakim Noah.
Boozer sprained his left ankle just before Kyle Korver’s game-winning shot with 25.5 seconds left in Saturday’s 99-96 victory over the Heat. The team is calling him day-to-day, but there is concern Boozer, one of just four players in the NBA averaging a double-double, will miss all four games this week because of the ankle’s significant swelling.
“This is not my first twisted ankle,” Boozer said, chuckling with gallows humor. “But it’s a bad one. It’s pretty swollen.”
Boozer limped out of the locker room in a walking boot. How long he is sidelined depends on how quickly his swelling lessens with treatment. Serious ankle sprains can last anywhere from days to weeks.
“I tried to tip in ( Derrick Rose’s) last shot and I don’t know if it got hit because I didn’t see the replay,” Boozer said late Saturday. “But when I hit the ground it was already on its side and all my weight came down on top of it.”
Taj Gibson will start in place of Boozer, just as he did when Boozer missed this season’s first 15 games following surgery to repair the fractured fifth metacarpal in his right hand. Kurt Thomas will continue to start for Noah.
Boozer’s injury also means Luol Deng will continue to see plenty of minutes at backup power forward. Deng, third in the league in average minutes per game behind Monta Ellis and Rudy Gay, has played 40 or more minutes in nine of the last 13 games.
“I’m feeling it a little bit,” Deng said. “But I’m fine.”
Coincidentally, Deng will be matched against Gay on Monday.
It’s also possible either James Johnson or Brian Scalabrine will enter the rotation until Boozer returns. Coach Tom Thibodeau has been partial to playing 10 players.
Thibodeau, to his credit, also has been partial to the no excuses route whenever injuries are discussed.
“That’s part of the league,” he said. “We have more than enough to win.”
Still, playing without Boozer and Noah will place even more of a scoring burden on Rose, who engaged in a spectacular shootout with Dwyane Wade in Saturday’s triumph.
“It’s really exciting because it makes you bring your best stuff,” Rose said. “You just do anything you can to win.”
Layups: Korver’s game-winner didn’t obscure — at least to him — the fact he is shooting 30.8 percent from 3-point land in January. “It’s been a frustrating month for me in a lot of ways,” Korver said. “I haven’t been able to get in a good rhythm. Hopefully, this will change my luck.” … Ronnie Brewer appreciated the chance to guard Wade on the final possession, forcing a miss. “That’s what you play basketball for,” he said. “For a coach to call on you to make a defensive stop and then go do it, it brings joy to you as well as your team because you helped win the game.”
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