It wasn’t necessarily a lot of fun for the Hawks to watch a 20-point, fourth-quarter lead slip away in an exhibition loss to the Bulls Thursday.
Yet, Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer loved it.
As in the Hawks’ previous two exhibition games against the Grizzlies and the Heat, the opposition played several starters for the majority of the fourth quarter. The Hawks countered with a lineup of its young players. The Grizzlies pulled out a five-point victory. The Heat nearly came back from a double-digit deficit in a loss. Against the Bulls, the youngsters couldn’t hold the large advantage and lost on Jimmy Butler’s 3-point buzzer beater in an 85-84 loss.
“We have things that we are looking for going into each of the preseason games,” coach Mike Budenholzer said. “There is an idea of how we want to play our guys and rotate them. It really has very, very little to do with winning or losing the game. I tell guys at some point they are done for the night. We stick to the plan and learn from things we don’t do great.
“It was great for (Mike Muscala) to play against Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol a couple nights ago and then (Chris) Bosh and for Dennis (Schroder) to play against (Mike) Conley and (Derrick) Rose. I just love it. It’s great for our young guys to play against guys who have that much experience and are established in our league.”
Over the final three exhibition games, Budenholzer will shorten his bench. He wants to build his starters and regular rotation players up to regular-season minutes.
