CHICAGO (670 The Score) – Bulls star guard Zach LaVine "felt great" physically in his season debut Saturday after missing the team's opening two games due to left knee injury management, but he remains uncertain when he and the team's medical staff will feel comfortable enough in his health for him to play in both ends of back-to-backs.
LaVine scored 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting in 28 minutes in the Bulls' 128-96 loss to the Cavaliers at the United Center. It was his first regular-season action since he underwent left knee surgery in May, after which he didn't play five-on-five until training camp. LaVine surprisingly missed Chicago's season-opening win at Miami on Wednesday and then also sat out its loss at Washington on Friday as he dealt with knee discomfort, which the team traced to a series of hard practices that represented another level of intensity for LaVine.
"Today was just go out there and play," LaVine said. "Felt great.
"When I play, I'm not going to try to hold anything back. It felt good to get out there."
The Bulls have three back-to-back sets in the next two-plus weeks, and coach Billy Donovan has indicated LaVine will almost certainly sit out at least one end in those. For his part, LaVine isn't sure when he'll play back-to-backs as usual.
"I don't know," LaVine said. "That's for us to go and talk about. Obviously, you guys know me, I like playing all the time. But you got to think big picture and what's most important. So we'll figure that out as it goes along."
Prior to the game Saturday, Donovan emphasized that LaVine is cleared to play, but the team will monitor his knee health on a day-to-day basis and respond accordingly.
"There's nothing wrong with him structurally," Donovan said. "He's fine. It's just something that we'll have to manage. We knew we were going to have to manage that going into the season. We just didn't know when or what it would look like. So we had to do something to ramp him up to start the season, and he was fully cleared to go through everything in training camp.
"When I say there's nothing wrong with his knee, he's cleared to play. It's just the fact of the matter is because he had an ACL surgery (in 2017), because he's had some scopes, there could be some times where he has some discomfort there. And us being able to manage that is really the most important thing."
The Bulls (1-2) host the Celtics (3-0) on Monday evening at the United Center.
"I expect to play Monday," LaVine said.
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for 670TheScore.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.
Listen live to 670 The Score via:
Audacy App | Online Stream | Smart Speaker
