Getty Michael Jordan, Bulls great
Chicago Bulls big man Nikola Vucevic had a historic NBA performance in Friday nights 122-115 win over the Indiana Pacers. Vucevic went for 36 points, 17 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 blocks in his stat sheet stuffing performance.
While those numbers are impressive, at first glance you might ask yourself, how are they historic? Vucevic is the first Bulls player since Michael Jordan to record at least 35 points, 15 rebounds, and 3 blocks in a game. Any time you can join Jordan in the record books there’s certainly a cause for celebration.
The Pacers were missing both Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis, so Vucevic was able to take advantage of his huge size advantage in the paint. He shot a blistering 16-21 from the field.
“It’s different,” said Vucevic, “when you just look at it you’re just like he has a huge size advantage and tonight I was able to really take advantage of it, but sometimes it’s harder because they crowd you and move around and you have to work extra hard to get it. It’s different, you’re not really used to playing against small guys, but tonight what we really did well was it wasn’t just straight post-ups for me where I had to go two or three dribbles to get to the rim it was a lot of seals out of ball movement and was able to just seal in the paint and just turn and score, so a lot of my were just easy…and my teammates did a good job finding me.”
Slow Start
Vucevic has struggled for much of this season, averaging 17.5 points and 11.7 rebounds per game. He’s really struggled with his shooting, so far this season he’s shot just 46.4% from the field and 33.5% from three.
Some of his slow start might be attributed to playing on the most talented team he’s ever been on. Playing on a team with DeMar DeRozan, Zach Lavine, and Lonzo Ball can certainly mean that Vucevic is getting fewer opportunities than he has in the past. So far this season Vucevic is attempting 15.9 shots per game, which is his fewest since the 2017-18 season with the Orlando Magic.
Heating Up
Despite the slow start to the season, Vucevic has really started to step up while the Bulls have been shorthanded due to injuries. Over the last seven games, he’s been averaging 24.1 points, 14.3 rebounds, 4.1 assists, and 1.6 blocks per game. His shooting numbers have drastically gone up during this stretch as well, shooting 63.2% from the field and 41.4% from three.
The way Vucevic has played over the last seven games is certainly an encouraging sign for the Bulls. The team is expected to be without Ball and Alex Caruso for another six weeks.
The Bulls are also extremely shorthanded in the frontcourt. Vucevic has been the only post player giving them consistent minutes. While there have been reports that Patrick Williams could return before the end of the regular season, nothing has been confirmed yet and it still leaves the Bulls shorthanded for the immediate future.
Time will tell if the Bulls will make a move at the trade deadline to help the frontcourt. Even if they do the team will need Vucevic to continue to play well the rest of the season.