Paul Sullivan: Bulls’ rivalry with defending champion Bucks has chance to blossom for first time in years

MILWAUKEE — Fans seldom have had any problem getting up for a Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers game, and the Milwaukee Brewers have developed into one of the Cubs’ biggest rivals over the last decade.

But the Chicago Bulls and Milwaukee Bucks never seemed to be on the same wavelength for one reason or another. When one team is up, the other is down, and they really haven’t had any intriguing regular-season games since the 1980s.

The Bulls are hoping to change that this season. And the Bucks coming in as reigning NBA champs and both teams contending for the Eastern Conference title, Friday’s first meeting of the season at Fiserv Forum created a buzz that could last for a while.

The Bulls took a one-point lead into the fourth quarter but failed to hang on, falling to the Bucks, 94-90.

Demar DeRozan scored a game-high 35 points for the Bulls (28-16).

Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Bucks (29-19) with 30 points and 12 rebounds.

Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer came into the night with a 12-1 record against the Bulls, with the only loss coming last year in the regular-season finale when he sat his starters and top bench players to rest them for the postseason.

“At least for the short time I’ve been here it’s probably been them putting this roster together, this team together,” Budenholzer said before Friday’s game. “The trade for (Nikola) Vučević was a big starting point. But they’ve played hard.

“Chicago teams, I feel like, you’ve always got to be ready to play hard, to embrace that city and atmosphere. If it becomes two teams that are elite and playing at the top of the league in a rivalry, that’ll be great. In sports, it seems like it’s changing all the time. I just hope we don’t go in the other direction.”

There’s little chance of that happening in the near future with Giannis Antetokounmpo on the Bucks roster. It’s really up to the Bulls to prove they can hang with the top dog the rest of this season and beyond.

The degree of difficulty increased this week when point guard Lonzo Ball was declared out for six to eight weeks because of impending arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. Coach Billy Donovan said Friday that Ball will have the surgery sometime next week, pushing the return back by one week.

“They’re going to use about a week here to allow him to rehab for surgery and do some strengthening going into surgery,” Donovan said.

Donovan said surgery was “the last thing you want to do,” but they didn’t see “significant change” in the injury after treatment. Donovan said a bone bruise was clear on the MRI, and there wasn’t enough on the torn meniscus.

“He’s been in good spirits,” he said. “Obviously it’s his choice after going through some of the therapy he got leaving Memphis and coming back to Chicago. There wasn’t a whole lot of change.”

So the start of the six- to eight-week clock to return won’t begin until after the surgery.

Zach LaVine has been on the court rehabbing his left knee sprain and could be back by the middle or end of next week, Donovan said, adding that forward Javonte Green (groin) still isn’t ready to return but is progressing nicely.

The Bulls have managed to get through their injuries for the most part and still had a share of the Eastern Conference lead with the Miami Heat going into Friday’s matchup.

Donovan said it’s a tribute to the team’s ability to step up when adversity strikes.

“Everybody has just got to be ready to play, and the guys have done a really good job when they’ve been called and asked to do certain things,” he said. “Certainly last game against Cleveland, as big as they were, we had some matchup challenges with their size. We’ll have matchup challenges tonight with Milwaukee’s size. ...

“Who knows what’s going to happen with the COVID (surge) going forward, but getting through the COVID and being hit with it so early, a lot of the stuff we’re dealing with right now has been the injuries and trying to get through that and being a little more whole. Someone mentioned to me a week or 10 days ago (that) we had more players miss more minutes than any other team in the league. I don’t know if that’s the case today, but certainly our guys that have had the opportunity to step in to some roles have been keeping themselves ready and being professional about doing their job, and doing it at a high level.”

The Bulls will have to keep climbing that mountain in the second half of the season because they have three more games against the defending champions after Friday. It’s strange for two teams in the same division not to have played each other in the first half of the schedule, but that’s the hand the Bulls were dealt.

Budenholzer called it “very, very unusual” to be seeing the Bulls for the first time so late in the season.

“You can’t help but see and hear and catch a game here or there where they’ve just played lights-out basketball,” Budenholzer said. “The changes they’ve made to their roster, the coaching, Billy Donovan continues year after year to do and amazing job, a great job. ...

“We’re excited to play the game tonight, and they’ve proven they’ve got a heck of team, great coaches and great players. We’ve been impressed for sure.”