MIAMI – It looked more like a nail salon than an NBA locker room.
Bulls player after player sitting comfortably in front of his locker having ice added to the soaking bucket they had just plunged their feet into.
There in the corner sat Matas Buzelis, giddy with the fourth-quarter comeback win over the Magic, but definitely feeling it.
“This was one of the most physical games I’ve played in for sure,” Buzelis said of the Thursday night donnybrook disguised as a basketball game.
He looked like it was.
But rather than focus on his 11 points, five rebounds, three blocks, and plus-8 in plus/minus, Buzelis didn’t even mention numbers or his offense.
His excitement was over getting the win, and both himself and teammate Julian Phillips doing whatever it took to help that process.
Just the latest welcome-to-the-NBA-rookie moment.
“Whatever it takes to get the win, honestly, and that’s what we had to do,” Buzelis said. “We had to be physical, dive on the floor, run in transition, and whatever we had to do. I’m proud of that, and I’m proud of Ju for sure.”
Bulls bigs like Zach Collins and Jalen Smith had their hands full with the likes of Paolo Banchero, Wendell Carter Jr., and Goga Bitadze for three quarters, let alone the undersized Buzelis and Phillips having to move those bodies around.
That was the situation the Bulls were forced into in that fourth quarter, however.
Collins fouled out with 9:44 left in the game and then Smith was ejected after picking up his sixth foul at the 8:11 mark.
“That was like a playoff game in terms of physicality,” coach Billy Donovan said.
And with Collins on the bench and Smith in the locker room, matching that physicality wasn’t going to be easy. In stepped Buzelis and Phillips – a combined 400 pounds soaking wet and with clothes on – taking on the Magic’s frontcourt made up of a bunch of guys that look like they came right out of the NFL’s tight end school.
The same frontcourt that made Buzelis and Phillips look very frail in the first half.
“I was really impressed with Julian and Matas because I didn’t think in the first half, and even to start the third, that the physicality was there at all by either one of them,” Donovan said. “And I understand the size (difference), I get that, but when you’re not physically competing, like putting your body in plays and making them play through you a little bit …”
You get pulled.
That’s why Donovan was leaning so heavily on Collins and Smith, staggering the two to make sure there was some sort of physical presence out there. Then they were both gone.
“You just gotta have that mentality to put your nose in there and do whatever it takes,” Buzelis said.
A mentality he continues to learn under fire.
“That’s the best way to learn,” Coby White said of Buzelis. “You can show film and talk to guys about it, but they just have to do it. They have to experience it under that fire.”
Phillips got a goaltending call for attacking the rim – which Donovan praised – and then there was Buzelis throwing his body at opposing bigs and on the hardwood for loose balls.
“When both of them got back in there in the fourth I thought both of them made a huge impact,” Donovan said. “Like they were in the game. I didn’t feel earlier in the game they played that way, but it was good to see them respond late, respond competitively like they did.”
Buzelis had a smile on his face and plenty of ice in the bucket to prove it.