Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said after Monday's 110-107 win over the Trail Blazers that Drummond wasn't able to return to the contest due to a tooth issue, Julia Poe of the Chicago Tribune reports.
Donovan indicated that Drummond could need to have the tooth extracted, putting the big man's status for Thursday's game in Houston in flux for the moment. Given that Drummond checked out of the contest for good with 2:28 remaining in the fourth quarter, the tooth problem didn't end up costing him much playing time. He finished with nine points (2-10 FG, 5-5 FT) and 11 rebounds over 14 minutes, which has been a relatively standard workload in recent games while the Bulls have been deploying him as more of a pure backup to Nikola Vucevic rather than running more two-center lineups. Drummond's minutes have ranged between 10 and 17 in each of the Bulls' last nine games, with the 30-year-old averaging 6.9 points and 7.4 boards over that stretch.