Clumsiness pursues Nikola Vucevic | NBA

Billy Donovan probably wanted to revive Nikola Vucevic after the break. After a first half ended at 2/8 on penalties on his former Magic floor, the Bulls pivot was in great demand, after his screens, on the first possessions of the second period.

A missed 3-point shot, a too short right hand “floater”, the same for his left hand “hook”, an uncertain transmission to Coby White… The former Floridian ended up returning to his bench after five minutes of play, during which he still ended up converting an award-winning basket, and committed a new fault.

Bad evening for the Montenegrin. In the heavy defeat of his team, he certainly signed his 23rd double-double of the season (13 points and 13 rebounds). But he committed six faults, lost five balls and above all shot at 4/19 on shots (with a +/- of -20 in the score when he was in play).

“ It’s frustrating every time you have a bad game, especially when you lose. Obviously I wanted to come here to play well and help the team win. I didn’t do any of that “, Regrets the double All-Star. The latter also wants to put his clumsiness into perspective. ” It’s part of the game. I was more disappointed with my defensive focus. “

The Magic have indeed scored 60 points in the Bulls’ racket, where the latter have only scored 34. There are so many ways to iNFLuence the game. I didn’t bring the energy and determination to help us win the game. I think it affected my shooting somehow“, Analyzes the pivot.

Lowest address in career

He is also aware that his skill problems do not date from this match. He recently showed it with a series of matches for ten days: 27 points at 12/20 on shots in Boston, 7 points at 2/13 two days later in Memphis then 24 points at 11/21 against the Cavs…

Irregular, he has only turned since the start of the season at 43% success, his lowest career percentage (49% overall). There is also a significant gap in skill in his team’s victories (45.9%) and defeats (37.9%).

” The trust is there. He’s worked too hard to hang on that. You can’t be perfect every night. We are by his side no matter what. We keep telling him. We win together, we lose together. It’s my mentality “, encourages his teammate, DeMar DeRozan.

The former Raptors and Spurs player believes that his pivot, with whom he played younger at the university of USC, has too much talent and experience in the league not to bounce back. Its effectiveness would be all the more welcome in the absence of Zach LaVine, the team’s second leading scorer, on the sidelines for five games (four losses for the Bulls). Reaction expected next night on the floor of the Thunder.