Chicago Bulls standout Matas Buzelis has never sounded like a player who plans to back down from anybody, and that edge showed up in a matchup with Luka Doncic that quickly turned into a lesson.
Buzelis, who is entering his third NBA season, has already put together plenty of notable moments across his first two years with Chicago. But he’s also had nights where the other team simply had the upper hand. Against the Los Angeles Lakers, that meant dealing with Doncic, Austin Reaves, and, at the time, LeBron James as well - a trio that made the assignment especially tough.
Doncic was the matchup that really bit back. Buzelis admitted that talking trash to the Lakers star was a mistake after Doncic took over and left him with a clear reality check.
"I mean, we're, in Chicago, that's nothing that's all day, you guys talk sh!t, but that's just, how I was raised up to play basketball and he wasn't really on anything that game, like, at first, I don't really wanna get into detail, cause it was some really, like, nasty things said, but he just started, he started baking me," Buzelis said on the Cousins show with Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.
He also made it clear that one rough experience wasn’t going to change his personality.
"In the media, I was saying, I was saying, I'm probably not gonna trash talk again to him. But I really don't care, like, I'm gonna do it again."
That’s the balancing act with Buzelis: he wants to bring the fire, but he also knows the risk that comes with it. In this case, the trash talk ran straight into one of the league’s most dangerous scorers, and Doncic made sure the message landed.
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