CLEVELAND — Zach LaVine’s eyes lit up even before the question was completed.
‘‘Ooh . . . Pat looked good,’’ LaVine said with a big smirk. ‘‘Keep him there.’’
It’s a sentiment shared by many when forward Patrick Williams has a splashy play or a flashy game. Fans, his teammates, the Bulls’ coaching staff, the front office, they all want to take those special Williams moments and hope they become a launching point to consistency.
There’s one problem with that.
Williams operates in a different headspace. He hears the noise — good and bad —but he has no interest in being sentenced by a large group acting as the jury to his career. There’s only one judge who carries that kind of heft.
‘‘Nobody can ever say something to me that I haven’t said to myself,’’ Williams said. ‘‘That’s why if it seems like I don’t care or I’m unemotional about it, that’s because I’ve said it to myself 10 times over.
‘‘Where am I at in my career? I don’t know what other people felt it should have been. I know that I feel I’m making my way toward it. You never want it to come easy. I didn’t want to be one of those guys that bloom early, blossom early. . . . Nah, I’d rather have it this way. Bumps and bruises, people talk [expletive] about me, ups and downs with an injury, ups and downs with everything. It builds an appreciation when I get where I’m going. It builds a resolve for when I do have a bad game, I can say, ‘I’ve been here before. Just move on.’ ’’
Maybe, just maybe, Williams, the 2020 No. 4 overall pick, is there.
Last week against the Cavaliers, he had only 13 points but grabbed 10 rebounds. Then Wednesday in New York, he had 18 points, six rebounds and the nasty put-back dunk that had LaVine raving afterward. Even in the Bulls’ rematch Friday against the Cavs, Williams had 17 points, handed out nine assists and went 4-for-5 from three-point range.
In those three games, he averaged 16 points and 6.3 rebounds, all while usually guarding the opposing team’s best scorer.
It felt special and it looked special when the team watched it on film.
Williams wasn’t running from any of that.
‘‘I’m special, yeah,’’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘‘One thousand percent. Every player has that confidence, but kind of when I go back and watch the film, I look and remind myself, ‘I really can.’ It’s a work in progress. I think I’ve gotten a lot more consistent at it.
“You’re going to have misses and makes, but it’s: How are you playing? How do you feel? Are you making plays on both ends? If I had the answer on all of this, I would have fixed it a few years ago.’’
Better late than never? Maybe. But as coach Billy Donovan has pointed out many times when it comes to Williams, the journey is different for each player. What Donovan has been seeing lately, however, is promising.
‘‘The game has probably slowed down for him when you’re looking at his reads and what he’s doing,’’ Donovan said. ‘‘He’s recognizing opportunities to drive the ball, shoot the ball.
‘‘I do think he’s going to the glass a lot harder and more aggressively. It’s not that he didn’t want to be aggressive. I think it was more of, ‘How do I go about doing that?’ ’’
It’s a question that Williams finally seems to have answered.
‘‘Too much work was put in; this was going to happen,’’ Williams said. ‘‘Maybe not when you wanted it to happen, maybe not when others thought it should happen. I would have liked it to happen November 2020. It’s November 2024, and this is where I’m at. I’m comfortable with that. No matter how it seems or how I sound about it, no one wants it more than I do.’’
Just keep it there.