By Sam Reeves

The 2022 NBA Playoffs begin with the play-in tournament starting April 12th. The Chicago Bulls were lucky enough to avoid the play-in and grab the 6 seed in the Eastern Conference. They will be matched up against the 3 seed and defending champion, Milwaukee Bucks. Now this season has been dreadful for the Bulls against top competition in the NBA and especially the Eastern Conference, itself. Going 0-4 in the regular season against Milwaukee, doesn’t bode well for their first round matchup. However, there is one thing they can do to not only win 1 game this series, but the whole damn thing. Unlock the Matt Thomas Experience™️.

Now this may come as a shock to everyone, seeing as Matt Thomas was been the 13th man off the bench lately. However, it wasn’t always that way. The Bulls were riddled with injuries throughout the season (Caruso, Williams, Lavine, Ball, Jones, Jr.) so that provided guys like Matt Thomas, an opportunity. Now I know a lot of people think of Matt Thomas as nothing more than a towel boy, but hear me out. He is very essential to the Bulls right now.

Not only is he the first guy off the bench during timeouts, giving high fives to those in the rotation, but he is also there celebrating the good plays with his fellow bench mates. He is also there to move off the bench seats, take that cushion, and sit on the floor, just so his teammates are comfortable. He is an upstanding player, and an even better person. However, its not just his amazing teammate skills that made me write this, lets look at what he brings to the court.

Matt Thomas played in 40 games in the regular season, putting up just 4 points per game, shooting 41% and 39% from 3 point range. Now that isn’t much, but its a little more fun when you break it down the way I did. I took Matt Thomas’ production in the Bulls wins and losses and broke it down to games where he only played 10+ minutes. Let’s start with the losses:

The Bulls lost 9 games when Matt Thomas played 10+ minutes. He played his highest amount of the season in an 11 point loss to Philadelphia where he played 34 minutes. In the 9 losses, Matt Thomas averaged 17.32 mpg scoring 6.11 points per game. As a bench player, is a bit below average, but not the worst thing in the world. It was a scrap for minutes even with all the injuries sustained by the roster, so he had to make the most of his time, chucking up 3’s and playing decent defense.

On the flip side, the Bulls won 12 games that Matt Thomas played over 10 minutes. He averaged 17.51 mpg and only 5.25 points per game. The minutes were up a bit, and the scoring production was down. It looks like he didn’t have to do as much in these games, because other players were at the top of their games. His highest scoring game in a win was 10 points, which again, for a lifetime role player, is fine. The team needs their glue guy, and Matt Thomas is their glue guy.

Since Matt Thomas left the rotation due to players being healthy, the Bulls went 8-15. Now a lot of that has to do with the who they played, obviously. However, why not let Matt Thomas stay in the rotation if you were winning with him? If I were Billy Donovan I would take a very serious look at giving Matt Thomas some minutes come playoff time. If you’re projected to get swept by Milwaukee anyway, what could possibly be the harm? If Billy Donovan lets the Matt Thomas Experience™️ live on, the Bulls will be NBA Champions.

*******DISCLAIMER******** The Matt Thomas Experience is in no way actually trademarked by The All Sports Scene.