Bulls see travel squeeze in wake of longest ground stoppage in 25 years

MINNEAPOLIS – The longest nationwide ground stoppage in 25 years impacted the flight plans of the entire country in the last 48 hours.

The Bulls were no exceptions to that.

Scheduled to leave Chicago after their Friday win against Atlanta and head to the Twin Cities for a back-to-back with Minnesota, the team found out afterwards that they would instead leave Saturday morning. Even that was delayed slightly, however, with the team getting in around noon.

Luckily, because it was a back-to-back it didn’t alter a ton of game preparation. In the normal second game of a back-to-back, teams often have no morning shootaround, instead watching film at the hotel and possibly going through a mock walkthrough in a hotel ballroom.

Bulls coach Tiago Splitter simply pushed the schedule to pre-game at the arena. The team had a film session 35 minutes before tip-off and went through strategy at that time.

It was still a first for Splitter, however.

“It’s kind of weird to travel the morning of a game,” he said. “At least for me it’s a first.”

What Splitter made sure of was his team didn’t use it as an excuse, especially because dozens of teams across the NBA, NFL and college football had to deal with the travel issues.

“Other than that it’s a back-to-back,” Splitter added. “You gotta bring the energy. Your legs are going to be a little heavier than normal but just take it like another game.”

As far as the rest of the three-city trip, it was business as usual. The Bulls were expected to fly to Cleveland Sunday afternoon and have the usual morning shootaround in preparation for the Monday night game with the Cavaliers.

Staying the course

It would have been easy for splinters to start coming to the surface in the locker room with the dismal 1-9 start, but as the win over the Hawks showed the locker room remains patient with the process.

“We’re doing a good job of that,” veteran Jalen Smith said when asked if the locker room showed any chemistry rough patches. “We’re a young team, we’re really connected with one another, you know. Pretty much everyone is around the same age, give or take a few guys, so we have a great relationship. We knew it was going to be hard – whole new front office, whole new coaching staff – we just got to put together wins. The NBA is a big boys’ league, you lose, you lose, but you want to go out fighting.

“I think we’re making the right strides. Everyone is trusting the process, everyone is putting in extra work, watching film, making sure we’re correcting our mistakes.”

The training room

Smith (left finger sprain) was injured late in the overtime win over Atlanta and wasn’t able to go on Saturday. The good news was it seemed like a minor setback rather than anything long term, according to the center.

As far as Nic Claxton and how the Bulls are going to handle playing him in back-to-backs after he missed the first three weeks of the season with a tweaked hamstring? They’re not. For the time being he will not play in the second game of a back-to-back.

Where’s Lenny?

Leonard Miller was one of the few positive surprises late last season and seemed to be capitalizing on that momentum throughout the summer and into the preseason, but after a subpar start to his season, he’s currently out of the rotation for the time being.

Shooting 18.5% and 43.4% from the field didn’t help.

“He had an outstanding summer for us, preseason,” Splitter said. “Now he’s a little bit out of the rotation. He didn’t start the season the way he wanted, but hopefully he can bounce back and play the way he was during the summer.”