Guard Coby White is set to make his home debut for the Chicago Bulls during Saturday night’s game against the last-place Washington Wizards.
The United Center faithful had to wait one more night as White rested during a 143-107 loss to the visiting Miami Heat on Friday. He missed the first 11 games of the season while recovering from a right calf strain.
White averaged 26.0 points and 7.5 assists during road games vs. Utah and Portland earlier this week. He dished the assist Wednesday on Nikola Vucevic’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer that defeated the Trail Blazers 122-121.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan has lauded White’s work ethic.
“He’s done as good of a job as you can, I think, getting himself ready for coming back,” Donovan said.
Perhaps that explains why White played 30 minutes of a double-overtime loss in Utah on Sunday during his first action this season.
“It’s always tough when it’s a lower-extremity injury because you can’t do a lot of things,” Donovan said, “but we felt like we were able to ramp him up in terms of cardiovascular, of him getting in good shape.”
Both Chicago and Washington are yearning for a victory. The Bulls have lost six of their past eight games, while the Wizards enter on a 13-game losing streak and are 1-14 overall.
Washington will aim to salvage the finale of a three-game road trip. Like the Bulls, the Wizards are playing the second leg of a back-to-back after a rout in NBA Cup play, having lost 140-110 at Toronto on Friday.
CJ McCollum (20 points), Tre Johnson (14) and Cam Whitmore (11) paced the Wizards in a game in which they led only after the game’s first basket.
While the Bulls yielded their most points in regulation on Friday, the Wizards fell eight short of their season high for points allowed.
How can Washington begin to improve defensively?
“I think it takes discipline,” McCollum said. “It takes a high level of focus, and it takes an understanding that teams are going to score; they’re good. They have good players. They’re going to score in transition, they’re going to get to the free-throw line. They’re going to hit 3s.
“But you have to make it as difficult as possible and not give them the easy baskets. Because when you get the easy baskets, you start to make the hard ones.”
The Wizards and Bulls each are navigating health issues. Alex Sarr (big toe soreness) and Marvin Bagley III (right hip contusion) missed Friday’s game for Washington, while Chicago’s Matas Buzelis (ankle), Isaac Okoro (lower back) and Dalen Terry (calf) were injured against Miami.
Seventeen of the past 25 meetings between the Bulls and Wizards have had winning margins in the single digits. None of those came last season, however. The Bulls went 3-1, but each victory came by at least 18 points.
Vucevic has notched a double-double in four straight games against Washington while averaging 18.7 points and 12.2 rebounds per game over that stretch.
