Bulls guard Kris Dunn not waving white flag even though his season appears over

WASHINGTON — Point guard Kris Dunn still isn’t tapping out.

Everything screams that his season is over, but Dunn seems to be the last one to know it. Or at least to admit it.

Dunn missed his fifth consecutive game Wednesday with a back strain. He played just over 21 minutes in his last game, the Bulls’ 114-83 loss to the Utah Jazz on March 23.

He went through warmups Monday in New York, and the big reveal was supposed to come Tuesday based on how he felt when he woke up. It wasn’t a good report.

“I would say it looks that way,’’ coach Jim Boylen said when asked if Dunn was finished with only three games left. “I don’t have a definitive answer for you, but that’s the way it looks. He just didn’t feel right while he was doing the workout. He didn’t feel like the workout got him loose or helped him.’’

Dunn was in warmups and didn’t participate in the extended shootaround before the game against the Wizards, but he still was clinging to hope.

“We’re just going to keep seeing,’’ Dunn said. “The biggest thing is just trying to get my back healthy again.’’

That’s not likely to happen, and if the season is over for Dunn, it will end with more questions than answers after he played in only 46 games.

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The Sun-Times reported in January that the Bulls had been scouting veteran point guards headed for free agency this summer, and Murray State’s Ja Morant is entering the draft.

Dunn has one more season left on his rookie contract, so he’s still in the mix. But expect a crowd to compete around him during training camp.

Boylen has let Dunn know what he needs to work on, and now it’s just a matter of seeing how Dunn embraces that.

“The things I talk about with him are decisions — when to shoot, when to pass — and then I think he’s got to do a better job of taking care of the ball,’’ Boylen said. “We can’t have — and not just from him but from everybody — the unforced errors. We’ve got to make good, solid plays.

‘‘We know if we turn it over 10, 12 times, we’ve got a chance. If we turn it over 14, 15 times, it’s hard for us to win. Our margin for error is not there yet.

“I think he needs to have a great offseason just from conditioning his body. The poor guy has had a nagging injury every year. He did the finger, then the knee, the back.

‘‘One thing I’m going to talk to [all our guys] about when the season ends is that committing to next year starts today. It doesn’t start next year, so that’s going to be a theme we talk about.’’

Hoya Paranoia

Hoyas legend and present-day coach Patrick Ewing stopped by the Bulls’ shootaround at the John Thompson Athletic Center on the Georgetown campus.

Otto Porter Jr., who played for the Hoyas from 2011 to 2013, tried to provide his younger teammates with a quick history lesson on what Ewing meant to the university and the area.

“I mean, he’s carrying on the tradition,’’ Porter said. “This university is based on, it’s predicated on tradition, and to have one of their prime guys to represent Georgetown from when it was huge — and it’s still huge — it means everything.’’