Bulls' Gibson out vs. Magic; Butler nears return
ORLANDO, Fla. — Chicago Bulls power forward Taj Gibson will not play on Wednesday night against the Orlando Magic because of a right hamstring injury.
“Taj is out tonight,” Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg said before the game. “Actually Dr. [Brian] Cole is in town for a conference so he’ll evaluate him tonight. Get back to Chicago — I’m not sure yet if we’ll do a scan on him. He’s got tightness right in the belly of his hamstring so he’ll definitely be out tonight.”
Second-year big man Cameron Bairstow will start in Gibson’s place. This is the first game Gibson has missed this season and he acknowledged that the hamstring was ‘still hurting’ after injuring it midway through the third quarter of Tuesday’s loss to the Miami Heat.
“I hope it’s not long,” Gibson said of his absence. “Because I really wanted to try to play every game, that was my goal coming in. But it was just tough, my hammy was really bothering me for a long time but I just kept playing through it, tried to play through all the fatigue and stuff.”
The Bulls, who are already playing without Joakim Noah for the rest of the season after shoulder surgery, got some good news, Wednesday in regard to All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler. Butler has been out since Feb. 5 after spraining his left knee.
“[He] had a great workout today, I actually talked to him on the phone a little bit ago,” Hoiberg said. “And he’ll be back in there [Thursday], practice fully with the team on Friday, and then we’ll make the decision. It’s still too early to tell if he’ll play on Saturday, but he’s definitely making progress.” Hoiberg also sounds optimistic that injured big man Nikola Mirotic will be making his return in the not too distant future. Mirotic has been out since Jan. 28 because of complications following an appendectomy.
“He’s making progress, had a good workout,” Hoiberg said of Mirotic. “The plan is to hopefully have him do some dummy stuff in practice on Friday and then start ramping up some contact drills, some one on one, two on two, progress him up to some five on five scrimmaging. [He’s] probably still a week and a half, two weeks away.”
Mirotic said after the surgery that he lost 17 or 18 pounds and Hoiberg admitted that his young player still hasn’t gained all the weight back.
“The biggest thing is the pain and getting his strength and weight up,” Hoiberg said. “That’s going to take some time. Again, he lost 15 pounds after that surgery. [He’s] still down some weight. The big thing is strength and I think confidence, knowing that he can take a blow down in that abdominal area and play in that area.”
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