Bulls guard Nate Robinson knew there was fallout coming.
And Tom Thibodeau admitted on Thursday that it came.
It was in the Tuesday win over Milwaukee in which Robinson went for the flash, throwing a second quarter pass off the backboard for Jimmy Butler to dunk on a breakaway.
Robinson said afterward that he knew Thibodeau wasn’t happy with the play, and he expected to get the call into the principal’s office for it even thought he insisted, ‘I ain’t going to do it again.”
According to Thibodeau, no, Robinson won’t.
“Yeah, we talked about it,” Thibodeau said. “The thing … I’ll say this, obviously I didn’t like the play. I like the unselfishness, though, and I told him that. I liked the fact that he saw Jimmy coming down and he wanted to drop it off to him and let him score the ball. Other than that play, I thought he did a lot of good things for us. I just want him to channel that the right way. I want him to make winning basketball plays, and I want that to be first and foremost, and I think it’s important to respect the game.”
As far as the idea Robinson, who had 24 points and 13 assists in that win, had that flashy plays get the energy of the team going? That’s a hard sell to Thibodeau.
“The plays that are uniting and inspire your team are winning plays,” Thibodeau said. “I thought he made a lot of winning plays in the game. The intention was right, he was unselfish. He saw Jimmy coming, but just turn around, drop it off and let him lay it in.”