DEERFIELD, Ill. -- Bulls starting point guard Kirk Hinrich fully participated in the team's practice Monday afternoon at the Berto Center and while neither he nor Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau would commit to saying that the veteran will be ready for the Halloween season opener, they both indicated that he's making progress. Hinrich received treatment after the afternoon session and was optimistic about the strained right groin injury suffered in the preseason not keeping him out of his regular-season return to the United Center.
"I'm doing much better," Hinrich said. "I participated in practice today and was pretty pleased about it.
"As of right now, if I don't have any setbacks tomorrow or anything, I plan on playing," he added. "It's something I've never really have before, I'm just happy with the improvement, and I just felt it was important for me today to get out there and get some reps, and try to test it as much as I could.
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"For a chance to be playing, I was going to be out here a couple days to see how it feels and I was very happy with it today, so moving forward, I'm going to approach tomorrow the same way and try to get through a full practice without any issues and see how I'm feeling."
Thibodeau concurred: "He was fine, a little bit better today. Practiced, went well, so we'll see where we are tomorrow."
Between Hinrich's original stint in Chicago and his return this season, he's been nicked up with various ailments while playing in Atlanta and Washington. Although his hard-charging style hasn't changed much since his younger days, the veteran explained that he now takes a different approach when he's banged up.
"All I can do is get my treatment, try to give an honest opinion of how I feel and try to test it out, and push it in ways that I'll be pushed in the game, so I felt like today was very positive in that regard," Hinrich said. "I'm probably a little bit smarter. I've had some injuries that have kept me out for extended periods of time at this point in my career. Just smarter in that regard."