The numerous casualties continue to take their toll on the Bulls. The Chicago team added its sixth defeat in the last seven games, this time once morest the bottom of the NBA, falling in Orlando by a clear 114-95, continuing a bad moment that has completely cut off the escalation that led them to be conference leaders. After their streak of nine consecutive wins, Donovan’s men have lost Zach LaVine, Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso due to injury, absences that are being noted these weeks.
DeMar DeRozan, with 41 points, tried to compensate for those losses, but his great performance was not enough this time. The shooting guard, lethal in his approaches to the hoop and in his mid-distance game (15/21 in field goals), tried to throw his team behind his back, but found little response from his teammates to save the ballot. Coby White, with 22 points, was practically his only support, because although Nikola Vucevic finished with a double-double of 13 points and 13 rebounds on his return to Orlando, he was left with a poor 4/19 in field goals, losing 5 balls and ended up expelled with 6 fouls.
Nor did the rotation men do more, whose little contribution did not help prevent the Magic from getting further and further away on the scoreboard. The second unit of the Bulls was just 10 points for 51 of the Orlando bench, a gap impossible to compensate for the Illinois.
“It’s a shame the bad luck we’re having,” DeRozan said. «Losing Caruso now that we were already without several important players has been hard. However, we still have to go out and compete every day.” However, this bad streak of fortune might end soon for the Bulls, because, waiting for the latest tests to allow it, Zach LaVine might return tonight once morest the Thunder.
If the Chicagoans had trouble finding men to contribute on the court, the opposite happened in the Magic, in whom seven of the nine players who had minutes finished in double figures. Moritz Wagner, with 23 points, was the leading scorer despite coming off the bench, and was followed by Wendell Carter Jr.’s 19, his brother Franz Wagner’s 18, and Jalen Suggs’ 15. For their part, both Cole Anthony, Chuma Okeke and Ignas Brazdeikis finished with 11 points, helping Mosley’s men to live a comfortable second half and close the match placidly.
(Cover photo: Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
