The Chicago Bulls have recently lost to the Milwaukee Bucks. The result was expected, as the Milwaukee Bucks are generally viewed as the favorites in the series. However, a lot of people pointed out that the Chicago Bulls’ big three of Nikola Vucevic, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine performed poorly, and that the result could have been different had they done better.
In particular, a lot of the attention was focused on DeMar DeRozan. A lot of people view him as a poor playoff performer, and tonight didn’t do anything to change people’s opinions. DeRozan shot 6-25 from the field and 0-2 from the 3PT range.
DeMar DeRozan did express confidence that he wouldn’t shoot that badly again, claiming that there’s “no way in hell” that he has that poor of a shooting performance in the future.
Nothing they’re doing defensively. Most of the shots I took were wide open. Wide open. I’d live with them again. Like I said, no way in hell I shoot 6-25 again.
DeMar DeRozan is likely right in saying that he won’t shoot 6-25 again. He had a very dominant regular season averaging 27.9 PPG, 5.2 RPG, and 4.9 APG. Many view this as his best season yet, and at one point, analyst Stephen A. Smith even claimed that DeMar DeRozan was the frontrunner for the MVP award.
“I have DeMar DeRozan neck-and-neck with Joel Embiid at this particular moment,” Smith said. “No one can be definitively placed above DeMar DeRozan for league MVP honors.”
Hopefully, we do see the Chicago Bulls improve as a whole, and come back swinging in Game 2 against the Milwaukee Bucks. They are a good team, with a fair amount of talent.
However, most of the pressure will be on DeMar DeRozan to step up. He is the leader of the team and is widely viewed as the best player on the team. We’ll see if he rises to the challenge, and delivers later on in the series.
