BOSTON — It’s easy to forget that Bulls forward Matas Buzelis has a 40-point game on his résumé. Forty-one points, actually, on a 16-for-28 shooting night against the Warriors in March.
It’s easier to forget that during that same month, in his second NBA season, he averaged 20.7 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.8 blocks over 14 games.
Is this season starting the way he’d like it to? Not even close. But the notion he’s somehow regressing or isn’t a true foundational piece in the Bulls’ latest rebuild left him shaking his head with a laugh Monday.
“We have Norm [Powell], Caleb [Wilson], both ultra-aggressive, so you’ve got to figure out the right time to shoot,” Buzelis said before the Bulls (1-3) fell hard in a 134-99 loss to the Celtics at TD Garden. “Not just me — all of us. That’s why we all watched film together [Sunday], players only, trying to figure out how things need to work.
“Once we figure out our spots, where we want to go, and then everyone figures out what they’re going to shoot, the shots they’re going to take, it will be easier to understand the game. Right now, how we’re shooting is like freestyle. We really don’t know what we have to get into or what sets we have to be aggressive in. But I know this group is very passionate about basketball and what we have to do to get there, how we can compete every night, [to] be the best team we can be.”
How does Buzelis (11 points Monday) see himself fitting into the equation specifically?
“What do people think — you’re going to come in and get buckets right away?” he said. “It’s a process. I’ve been working really hard, worked hard this summer, so all I need to really do is get out there and trust my skills. I’m still trying to figure out where I can hunt my shots at, where I can be aggressive. And once that happens, we’ll be just fine, all of us.”
“All of us” is a focal point for him this season: Getting together for extra film sessions. Talking it out. Getting on the same page.
That cohesiveness also falls on first-year Bulls coach Tiago Splitter. It’s great that Wilson, the No. 4 overall draft pick, dropped 30 points on the Wizards in his first home game Saturday — but it came in a loss. Splitter knows Wilson is a huge piece in what the Bulls hope to achieve, but he’s not the only one. His philosophy is making sure Buzelis and Wilson develop at the same time.
“Play the right basketball,” Splitter said. “Coach them, teach them. Be on it when it’s needed. I think that’s how you build a team — you build winners.
“I don’t think there’s any secret there. It’s not just ‘Let them play.’ You have to coach them where to be, how to do it. . . . It’s a balance, also, where you play random basketball and sometimes you call a play for one of those guys. So, it’s a balance for sure.”
Buzelis is on board — he just wants to make sure he’s on the floor to help make it happen. That wasn’t the case last Friday night, when he was benched for the entire fourth quarter of the Bulls’ victory over the Bucks.
“If we see [forward] Lenny [Miller] is playing better than me, creating more advantages, you play him,” Buzelis said. “As a competitor, of course I’m a little annoyed, I want to be out there. But I also have a responsibility to show that I belong out there, that I belong on the court at the end of a game. That’s on me to play hard, create problems for the opposing team. That’s my responsibility.”
