The Chicago Bulls dismantled the Atlanta Hawks in Wednesday’s play-in game, but they will likely have to finish off the job without Alex Caruso.
Caruso was injured in the second quarter of the Bulls’ 9-10 showdown against the Hawks on a bizarre sequence in transition. Bulls center Andre Drummond, who is 6-foot-11 and 280 pounds, was trying to run back up the floor on defense and apparently did not see Caruso in his path. Drummond proceeded to run over his teammate Caruso, who fell hard to the ground and came up favoring his left foot.
Here is the video.
Alex Caruso suffered an apparent injury after this collision with Andre Drummond.
He has yet to return to the game. pic.twitter.com/5Uc4c0WiKk
— ESPN (@espn) April 18, 2024
Caruso immediately subbed out of the game with the injury. He would return for the last five minutes of the second quarter as well as for the first couple minutes of the third quarter but subbed out for good with 9:43 left in the third.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported after the game, which the Bulls won comfortably 131-116, that Caruso suffered a “significant” left ankle sprain as a result of being stepped on by Drummond on the play. Caruso’s availability for Chicago’s second play-in game against the Miami Heat on Friday is now in doubt, Wojnarowski adds.
Caruso, a former All-Defensive First Teamer, is Chicago’s best one-on-one stopper as well as one of their better three-point shooters (40.8 percent this year). While fellow guards Coby White (42 points), Ayo Dosunmu (19), and Javonte Green (10 off the bench) stepped up Wednesday with Caruso hurt, the Bulls will need Caruso in the lineup if they want to extent their season any further.
The winner of the Chicago-Miami game will earn the No. 8 seed in the East and face the No. 1 seed Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. But it seems like that game on Friday will be a war of attrition with both Caruso as well as a major Heat player both in doubt right now due to injury.
