Guard Josh Giddey missed his second game in the last five days with a sore right wrist.

He played in the Bulls’ victory Wednesday against the Heat, but the medical staff made the decision to rest him Friday against the Wizards, considering where the team was in the seedings.

Questions about Giddey’s defense, however, won’t be put to rest.

He has made huge strides in the regular season, but in the playoffs last season with the Thunder, he was exposed by the Mavericks.

The goal is to demonstrate that those days are well behind him, and he has shown the physicality at 6-8 and the will to do that.

“That’s probably where I’ve got to be in an advantage as a defender because some guys are just naturally quick and explosive laterally, and I didn’t get blessed with those gifts, so I’ve just got to find other ways to be an impactful defender,” Giddey said.

“It’s also matchup-dependent. If I’m matched up with a bigger guy, I’ve got to be more physical with them, but with quicker guards, I try to give myself a bit more room to keep them in front of me. Being physical, and not just on the ball, hitting cutters, block-outs, there are a number of ways physicality can be involved in the game.”

Coach Billy Donovan is embracing all of it, especially Giddey’s mindset.

The hope is always that NBA players understand the importance of defense from Year 1, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Donovan didn’t know it for sure but guessed that because the Thunder had so many other elite defenders, they were able to hide Giddey on lesser offensive threats.

Giddey admitted as much.

With the way the Bulls are constructed, there is no hiding.

“With our team, [Giddey has] had to take a Brandon Ingram, had to take bigger forwards at times,” Donovan said. “There’s times he’s had to handle guys that are really good off the dribble, as well. He’s had to figure that out. I think that was a major problem early in the year.

‘‘We didn’t have the luxury of ‘take him and hide him on somebody.’ And everybody has to guard.

“That’s the one thing I’ve been impressed with on Coby [White]. We don’t have one guy that is a defensive stopper. A lot of times we have guys that have to guard their position. Matas [Buzelis] has gone through that. As a rookie, we’re not trying to hide him, either. I think that’s good for their growth and development. That’s been a stronger commitment from Josh, where they were targeting him, they were putting him in actions, they were trying to attack him. It gets to a point where a player has to make a stand or shut that off a little bit.”

Ticking clock

The Bulls won’t rule out guard Tre Jones (sprained left foot) for the season, but Donovan said Friday that he’s still in a walking boot.

He can take it off and do some rehab, but he needs to be completely pain-free, then go through a ramp-up period to get his conditioning back.

With only one regular-season game left, a return doesn’t look promising for the free agent-to-be.