With all the optimism of Luol Deng’s return leading up until tip-off of Saturday’s game against Milwaukee, the energy displayed by his teammates leading up to tipoff gave all indication that the eight-year veteran would be back in the lineup -- after the small forward missed the previous seven games after sustaining a torn ligament in his left wrist on Jan. 21 against the Charlotte Bobcats.
Deng warmed up with assistant coach Adrian Griffin longer than he usual, getting up shot-after-shot.
He left the court and preceded to the locker room, where he discovered teammate C.J. Watson at the trainer’s during his usual time of receiving treatment and being helped stretched.
“Welcome back, cap,” said Watson with a grin.
Deng could only smile and shake his head as he elected to shower and wait his turn at the training table.
With the crowd inside the Bradley Center being mostly pro-Chicago, it only infused the Bulls more.
Deng would score his first two points with remaining 10:46 in the first quarter. It would put the Bulls ahead by two points and they would never look back, cruising to a 113-90 win over the Bucks.
Looking just a big tentative at first, Deng missed three layups at the rim in the first quarter and had some uncharacteristic turnovers , for a guy who had ,up to that point, only done one-on-one and three-on-three workouts, his stat sheet read like what you’re used to seeing from him.
21 points, nine rebounds in 41 minutes of action.
The 41 minutes probably was the only unusual stat as Coach Tom Thibodeau played him the entire second half before subbing him out for good at the 1:39 mark of the fourth quarter and the Bulls having been up by more than 20 points all during the second half.
Even with the wrist being iced after the game, Deng said there wasn’t any swelling, that he was fine and that he would just try and forget about the injury.
“I’m just going to continue everything the same,” said Deng. “Every practice, I’m going to practice and just going to forget about it. I’m playing so I don’t even want to keep talking about it. I just want to just play. As long as I’m playing, I’m fine.’
You can’t ask anyone in the roster about the importance of Deng to the team without them describing all that he does and how easy he makes the game for everyone as Thibodeau uses him also as a stabilizer for the second unit.
“Lu’s just kind of a safety net,” says Kyle Korver. “He does everything, great on-the-ball defender, gets rebounds, we don’t run a ton of plays for him, but he always ends up with the ball. He makes good decisions, he’s kind of covers everything.”
While Derrick Rose is the team’s best player, Deng doesn’t fall short next to him in terms of his importance, which is why there has to be some caution as to how he’s being played.
The Bulls are at a good point in the schedule as they don’t have any back-to-back games until the end of the month and it will be interesting to see how Deng’s wrist responds.
While he can do no further damage to the wrist and as he said “it is what it is,” at this point, one wrong hack or fall and he could find himself back on the shelf for an even extended amount of time.
“The swelling is gone and he had to do the rehab and strengthen the wrist again and he’s consulted a number of different doctors. He feels pretty good with where he is and we’re confident that this is going to work out well.
“There have been a number of studies, that there are many players that have never had the surgery, it sort of heals itself and that’s what we’re hoping for.”
Hope won't help the Bulls in their championship aspirations, only having Deng at as full strength as possible will.
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