The Chicago Bulls are highly likely to lose to the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks in their first-round playoff series, but they have bagged themselves a whole host of new fans in the process.
From DeMar DeRozan shrugging off the label that he is a regular-season player in game two to go off for 41 points, to Alex Caruso being everything they could have hoped for and more, it has been great to see this still under strength Bulls team give it a real go. With Khris Middleton hobbled, the Bulls could yet make life more difficult for the Bucks before they ultimately advance.
The Chicago Bulls Game 2 heroics in Milwaukee were especially important for Nikola Vucevic, who, after all these years, finally had his deserved moment in the limelight.
If you didn’t know, that was only Vucevic’s seventh playoff game win ever. He is 31. Three of those wins came when he was a rookie with the Philadelphia 76ers, in a series where averaged 2.9 minutes per contest and a single point per game. In other words, those ones don’t count.
In the hearts of the Orlando Magic faithful, however, the next two certainly did. Wins over both the Bucks and Toronto Raptors as undermanned eighth seeds. Nikola Vucevic was the Magic’s best player in that Bucks series, and the Raptors games we will return to later. Nobody cared though because, well… Vucevic played for the Magic.
But having a great game for a storied franchise like the ChicagoBulls hits different, and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy. Vucevic was traded to the Bulls as a guy who had made a couple of All-Star teams, was a walking double-double, and who had the offense flow through him in Orlando.
Joining a team featuring DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball, Patrick Williams, Coby White, and Caruso meant some adjustments. These days, Vucevic sets far more picks and passes out of so many of the shots he used to take, all for the good of the team. Not only was he nowhere near All-Star consideration this season (despite still having the talent), his numbers took a sizeable hit.
This is the thing with sacrificing for the good of the team. Everybody says they will do it if it means winning big until the time comes to actually do it. Vucevic went from averaging 24.5 points and 11.8 rebounds in his Magic heyday to 17.6 points and 11.0 boards. Still impressive, but they came much more in the flow of the offense and not in ways to exclusively get him looks as before.
Nikola Vucevic was also a 40 percent three-point shooter by the time he left the Magic. Truly, it was the area of his game, outside of his still underrated defensive play, that had improved the most. That is way down at the depths of 31 percent this season, and that is because head coach Billy Donovan has created a playbook where DeRozan’s unreal midrange game can be a focal point very often.
With Ball having been lost to injury for much of the year and Caruso only finding his way back, the Chicago Bulls looked to be in trouble in this series from early on. Yet, in Game 2, there was Vucevic, tentative at first before channeling some of his former Magic days in taking over for small stretches of the game.
DeRozan was the closer down the stretch, but to keep their heads above water when the shark that is Giannis Antetokounmpo came circling, Vucevic had to put up a 24 and 13 stat line. These numbers were above his season averages, and he put them up while also providing a ton of help on the defensive end.
This is why Vucevic deserved the moment and the praise so much – because of how much he was ridiculed in the past. Returning to that Raptors series, the first significant playoff action of his career, Vucevic was absolutely decimated by Marc Gasol. By the end of that five-game series, Vucevic sat on the bench and looked like a broken man.
The following year against the Bucks was so much better, but it wasn’t until he schooled Brook Lopez in a Bulls uniform the other night that Vucevic really got the credit he has always deserved. There are few more genuine guys in the league. This is the person who cried when he was traded from Orlando. Not to Orlando. From Orlando.
The Chicago Bulls won’t win this series. But this postseason, they have picked up some new fans, and with a healthier roster next season, they look like they could go even further when everybody is back together and firing on all cylinders. You can bet Nikola Vucevic will be integral to that version of the team as well. Nobody will deserve it more.