SAN FRANCISCO — In the minutes after the Chicago Bulls eked out a 130-124 overtime win against the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night, a missed shot nagged at coach Billy Donovan.
With 32 seconds left in overtime, Matas Buzelis accepted a transition pass from guard Josh Giddey and lined up a hair-trigger 3-pointer from deep in the corner, just in front of the bench. It wasn’t the fact the ball didn’t sink through the net that bothered Donovan. It was the process.
The Bulls had a five-point lead and 16 more seconds of shot clock to burn. Instead of winding the game down to the wire, the miss from Buzelis gave the Warriors another crack at pulling the game within a single possession with plenty of time left on the clock. Intelligent players make intelligent decisions with a game on the line — and Donovan believes Buzelis has the basketball IQ to become a true star.
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Buzelis knew it wasn’t the smartest shot, albeit not when he took it. At that moment, he didn’t have an eye on the clock. He didn’t realize barely a half-minute was left on the clock. If he had, Buzelis said after the win, he would have considered other options.
But the second-year forward felt confident. He was in the midst of a career-best scoring night. Five of his 15 3-point attempts had gone in. The Bulls held a five-point lead. How much could it hurt to take a heat-check shot from the corner?
Donovan, of course, informed him of every way that decision could have hurt the Bulls in the moments after the win. Buzelis sheepishly offered up his reasoning like a kid caught out for disobeying a parent’s command: Someone on the bench told him to take it. The coach had to laugh through his frustration.
“That’s great,” Donovan chided. “It’s not the shot.”
Buzelis agreed. The moment he glanced up at the scoreboard, he knew it was the wrong shot. But after the game, the forward’s teammates wouldn’t let him downplay the (perhaps misguided) decision to let that shot rip.
“Blame it on me!” guard Collin Sexton shouted over Buzelis from across the locker room. “He was hot. I told him to shoot it.”
Sexton knew he might take a little heat from Donovan if the coach ever found out he was the one leading the encouraging chant for Buzelis to shoot. He also didn’t care. He’d do it again.
“Look, I knew that would be the best shot we’ve had in …” The guard’s eyes widened as he blew out a sigh, scrunching up his face wistfully. “In a long time.”
Over the last two weeks, Buzelis quietly reached a new stage of his career. Sexton’s cheerful confidence in his teammate is a piece of evidence to that effect.
Buzelis averaged 19.2 points in the 13 games since the trade deadline while facing the toughest defenders opponents can offer. He’s not just making improvements in the flashy areas of the game that often drive the obsession of young players. His 96 blocks this season are tied for fifth-most in the NBA. Buzelis ranks first in isolation defense among players who have notched 60 or more such possessions, holding opponents to 28.6% shooting when matched up in one-on-one situations.
This is the type of growth that precedes ascendance. Buzelis is now suspended in the murky space between “promising” and “lethal.” His teammates believe in him. His coach believes in him. The path to stardom looks more tangible by the day. He just has to keep taking steps.
“I try to come out aggressive every game,” Buzelis said. “Good things will happen if you put in the work and you believe in yourself. But you have to put the work in. If you don’t, you’re just cheating yourself.”
This latest step started on a quiet evening in Chicago two weeks prior.
The Advocate Center was mostly empty when Buzelis came in around 8 p.m. on Feb. 24 to put up a few extra shots. Still, he wasn’t surprised to find Donovan in his office adjoining the practice courts. The forward stopped in for a quick chat that quickly devolved into a lengthy discussion about basketball.
Buzelis was discouraged by his struggles to find his shot amid a losing streak that had stretched to nine games. He had taken only three shots inside the arc in the previous game, a 105-99 loss to the New York Knicks. Donovan pushed him to reassess his shot creation, to put his length and speed and athleticism to greater use on his arc from the perimeter to the rim.
The conversation stretched nearly two hours. It was past 10 p.m. by the time Buzelis headed home, his mind still reeling over the challenge of finding himself offensively.
“I’m riding with Billy forever,” Buzelis said. “He tells you the truth every time. You can appreciate that when somebody tells you what you need to hear instead of hearing all the other talk which isn’t true. He’s going to always stand up for you. He’s somebody in my life that is a huge cornerstone. I’m always going to be thankful for a coach like that who believes in you.”
On Tuesday, Buzelis reaped the rewards of that conversation. Buzelis shot the ball 28 times against the Warriors, making 16. He went 11-for-12 in the paint. He earned five trips to the free-throw line. And he did not take a single non-paint 2-point shot.
This volume was driven by the way Buzelis worked on and off the ball, creating a metronome of high-tempo movement that commanded the rest of the offense. Decisiveness is defined by a player’s ability to absorb information without slowing down to process.
Buzelis can’t let the ball stick in his hands. Constant motion is his greatest ally. That was clear against the Warriors. Buzelis pounced on straight-line drives when defenders flew at him on the perimeter, then stepped behind screens to pull 3-point shots. This is the game. Adjust. Then adjust again.
“If he holds it and tries to read the defense and then figure out what he wants to do — it’s too late,” Donovan said. “He’s seeing that more now.”
Before each game, Buzelis repeats a simple mantra: “Nothing is a given. Nothing is a guarantee.”
This is the humility with which Buzelis wants to approach basketball for the rest of his career. Success is fleeting. So is loss. Reveling or wallowing in either part of the game only slows the process.
Yes, Buzelis scored 41 points against the Warriors. He’s proud of it. He’ll celebrate it. But even in the hour following the win, the forward was thinking about how to do it again. And again. Once is a fluke. Twice is a pattern. More than that? Well, that’s the beginning of a star career.
“I believe I can do it consistently,” Buzelis said. “But I have to do it. I have to show it.”
