SACRAMENTO — This isn’t the first time Jimmy Butler has suffered a bruised heel. He played through a similar injury early last season, but the Bulls are taking a more cautious approach this time. Butler sat out Friday’s 121-117 overtime loss to the Houston Rockets with what was termed a right heel contusion, and is listed as questionable ahead of Monday’s game against the Sacramento Kings.
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On a scale of one to 10, the pain level depends on how much he tries to do.
“Right now it’s not really pain because there ain’t no weight on it,” Butler said after the Bulls’ practice at the Golden 1 Center on Sunday afternoon. “But when you get out there, I’d rate it a 6 or a 7. Shit hurts.”
Butler suffered the injury in a collision with Russell Westbrook the Bulls’ 128-100 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday.
“Whenever Russ threw my layup … I stepped too hard on the initial step,” Butler said. “I already knew that something had happened, but I didn’t know it would feel like this.”
Butler underwent an MRI on his foot on Saturday, which came back without any structural damage, and he’s considered day-to-day. He suffered a similar injury in a Nov. 20, 2015 loss to the Golden State Warriors and played through it, although he says that injury was more severe than this one.
“We already knew what it was for the most part,” Butler said. “I had this exact same thing except worse, I think two years ago. So me and [head athletic trainer Jeff Tanaka] already knew.”
The Bulls, surprisingly, stayed competitive with the Rockets on Friday without Butler, and now face a Kings team fresh off a surprising Saturday night overtime win over the Warriors.
“Obviously, Jimmy is a big part of what we do at both ends of the floor,” Bulls guard Dwyane Wade said Sunday. “But in the NBA, it’s very rare guys play 82 games. So you gotta be prepared for it. And guys have to be willing to step up. Guys have been working very hard around here of late. So I think everyone is looking forward to their opportunity if they get it. You gotta go play your game. You can’t replace players like Jimmy. But bring whatever you bring to the game. And understand defensively, we’re going to have to do a little bit more together. We don’t have that guy that we can just put on a guy. We want him to be healthy for sure. We don’t want him out there playing not the way he’s capable of either. He’ll figure out when he’s ready. Outside of that, we have to do our job and compete.”
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Butler’s status for Monday is up in the air.
“Obviously I want to play,” Butler said. “I want to beat DeMarcus Cousins.”
Bulls forward Cristiano Felicio is out for at least a week with a leg injury (Soobum Im/USA TODAY Sports)
Cristiano Felicio out at least a week
Butler isn’t the only Bulls player who comes into Sacramento banged up. Backup center Cristiano Felicio suffered a right leg sprain in the loss in Houston, and the team expects him to miss around a week.
“After watching it on film, he tweaked it on the inside pretty good,” Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said. “He was having trouble putting pressure on it after the game. He’s a lot better, which is a big relief for us. Hopefully, we’ll get him back soon.”
Felicio has carved out a place for himself in the Bulls’ rotation, playing 15.1 minutes per game off the bench. His physical presence will be missing against Cousins and the Kings. Expect forward Bobby Portis to soak up most of those minutes while he’s out.
Denzel Valentine back from the D-League
If Butler does sit on Monday, Hoiberg will have one option that wasn’t available to him in Houston. Rookie guard Denzel Valentine is back with the team after playing two games with the Windy City Bulls in the D-League.
“It sounds like he played great,” Hoiberg said. “He led the guys, almost had a triple-double in his last game. He was one assist shy and I guess a guy missed a dunk on the last play, so could have got him the triple-double. But went out there and played well, played the right way, and played with the ball in his hands a lot. Which is good for him, and I think it was a great experience to send him out there for a couple days.”
Valentine, the No. 14 pick in the 2016 draft, has been out of the rotation for the Bulls’ last seven games, but if Butler doesn’t play, there will be some minutes open on the wing. Such a drastic shift in role wouldn’t be a shock — point guard Michael Carter-Williams started the game in Houston after picking up four straight DNP-CDs and playing just six garbage-time minutes in Oklahoma City. He played his best game of the season, finishing with 23 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists in 35 minutes. Valentine could see a similar spike in playing time on Monday.
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Wade shouts out the Truth
As the Bulls were practicing, across the country the Boston Celtics were hosting the Los Angeles Clippers in Paul Pierce’s final game in Boston, where he spent 15 seasons and won a championship in 2008. Wade is one of the few players in the NBA who can relate to Pierce’s late-career journey after being associated with one team for most of his career and then going elsewhere. He played his first game against the Miami Heat with the Bulls on Nov. 10.
“For Paul, he played there for 15 years,” Wade said. “A lot of down years, some up years, he was there through it all. Unfortunately, he couldn’t finish his career there. I think he said it: It’s always going to feel different going back. For me, going back to Miami, when you go back on the other side of the locker room, it’s always going to feel weird and feel different because you spend so much time in one place. But from a city standpoint, it’s familiar. You feel the impact that obviously you made in the city with him winning a championship in Boston and me winning a few championships in Miami. That’s always going to be there.”
As time expired on Sunday, with the Celtics having wrapped up a win against Pierce’s Clippers, they let him shoot a 3-pointer for old times’ sake, and he drilled it.
Watch and listen as the Boston faithful give Paul Pierce a hero's farewell.pic.twitter.com/OKeMKd087R
— NBA (@NBA) February 5, 2017
Wade’s relationship with Pierce goes back further than that, all the way to an encounter his rookie year.
“So my rookie year, in the summer before, we all played at Tim Grover’s gym in Chicago and it was very competitive,” Wade said. “And we all just talking smack and Paul had a moment in the gym when he went Paul on us and he just said, ‘Wait until the season’ and all this talking stuff. We played Boston the second game of the year. It was a back-to-back. I’m coming off a hip pointer in game one and I decided I don’t want to take it off. This is my second game in the NBA. And I gotta guard Paul Pierce with a hip pointer. Needless to say, he tore me alive and talked to me every point that he had. I think I had 5 points. And he probably had high 20s. For me, that was just like a ‘shut your mouth and just work’ moment.”
Wade’s memory is pretty good. He went 2 for 12 from the field that game, scoring five points in a 98-75 Boston win on Oct. 29, 2003. Paul Pierce hit 8 of 15 shots and scored a game-high 23 points.