SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Sometimes the 21-year-old still comes out.
It’s not purposeful by any means, and Matas Buzelis has acknowledged that Bulls coach Billy Donovan has pushed him to step up and start taking a veteran leadership role, but there’s still going to be moments when the second-year forward is simply acting his age.
That happened after Sunday’s loss to the lowly Kings.
Buzelis was notified by a reporter that he was closing in on 100 blocks for the season and asked what that meant for him.
Never one to publicly get caught up in his own statistics, he responded, “I don’t really know. I mean 100 is obviously cool, but I don’t really know.”
A good answer but one that showed he clearly didn’t know the magnitude of that number.
When then informed that would rank him 7th in the league, Buzelis said, “Oh yeah? That’s pretty cool.”
It sure was, especially for a Bulls roster that has been screaming for consistent rim protection for years. The last Bulls player with 100-plus blocks was Robin Lopez in the 2016-17 season. He finished ranked 10th in the league that year.
Buzelis led the Bulls with 75 blocks as a rookie last season, and the year before that their best shot blocker was guard Alex Caruso with 70.
Buzelis will enter the Tuesday game against Golden State with 94 blocks in the 2025-26 campaign, averaging 1.5 per game. He will likely hit the 100 mark by the end of the current five-game road trip.
“I’m really good at timing the block and knowing when guys will try and finish when they’re going up,” Buzelis said of his skillset. “It’s something I feel like I’ve had since I started playing basketball. I just try and translate it to the NBA. Obviously, it’s a little harder, but you got to realize what guys do when they’re driving, how they finish, but I feel like I’ve got the timing and the verticality. Straight up at the rim is hard to finish over me since I’m so tall, but it’s definitely something I have.”
And something the Bulls need.
In an offense that is predicated on up-tempo and high pace, blocking a shot and then getting the defense on its heels by pushing the ball back up the floor checks a lot of boxes in what coach Billy Donovan wants to do.
Factor in that Buzelis is a natural three and can handle the ball, as well as get out in the break, and that adds another dimension to his shot-blocking ability. An ability that Buzelis knows he’s just scratching the surface on.
Because he considers himself a student of the game, he’s often watching film after games and trying to figure out tendencies of opposing players. He credits that work as another reason why his shot blocking continues to improve.
“My rookie year I started getting three (blocks in a game) and I was, ‘Alright, I can try and impact the game in that way,’ “ Buzelis said. “Moving forward and guarding players on the perimeter and seeing their tendencies is something I’ve been working on.”
What Buzelis was also working on as far as the rest of this trip was concerned? Playing with more urgency. Winning is still priority No. 1 for Buzelis and the loss to the Kings was not sitting well.
“We lost a lot of 50-50 (balls against the Kings), offensive rebounds, in transition, those are things you can fix, you know?” he added. “You’re going to miss shots, and whatever, but you got to win the 50-50s. It always comes down to the minute details in winning.
“I just didn’t think we came out and competed, myself included. We gotta fix that.”