The Chicago Bulls have been hit very hard by injuries throughout the season. Patrick Williams went down early in the season with a wrist injury that could keep him out the remainder of the NBA regular season. More recently, their backcourt was hit hard.
Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso went down with injuries that required 6-8 week timetables for recovery. Ball injured his MCL while Caruso hurt his wrist after a dirty foul by Grayson Allen. Couple that with the injury scare of Zach LaVine, and it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Bulls stumbled a little bit head into the All-Star break.
They have actually done the opposite. They are riding a five-game winning streak heading into the All-Star break despite all of the key players they are missing. The driving force behind that success has been DeMar DeRozan.
Anyone who questioned the Bulls’ acquisition of DeRozan in the offseason has been quieted time and time again by the veteran wing. He has been outstanding all season and has turned things up another notch recently with so many teammates sidelined.
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In the Chicago Bulls’ most recent game against the Sacramento Kings, a 125-118 victory on Monday night, DeRozan continued his crazy hot streak. He poured in 38 points on 16-of-27 from the field with six rebounds and six assists. In the process, he set an NBA record that was held by Wilt Chamberlain.
In 1963, Chamberlain scored at least 35 points while making at least 50 percent of his field goals in six consecutive games twice. On Wednesday, DeMar DeRozan extended his streak of hitting the same plateaus to seven games, which is the longest such streak in NBA history.
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“Just to be in the record books along with staples of basketball history — [I’m] speechless,” DeRozan said following Wednesday’s game. “As a kid, as a fan of the history of the game, being in the league as long as I’ve been in the league, things like that continue to make me even more humble.
“It’s something I’ll never take for granted. And the crazy thing is, I feel like I missed eight easy shots I normally would have made. I felt like I had a bad shooting night, honestly.”
This is one of the most dominant stretches in recent NBA history. No matter what opposing teams throw at him, DeRozan is finding a way to stuff the stat sheet. During this seven-game stretch, DeRozan is averaging 38.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game while making 60.7 percent of his shots from the field.
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DeRozan has scored 30+ points in eight consecutive games, which is the longest streak for a Bulls player since Michael Jordan in 1996. Whenever you are in the company of two of the greatest basketball players who ever lived, you are doing something right.
At worst, the Chicago Bulls will be tied with the Miami Heat for the best record in the Eastern Conference heading into the All-Star break. DeMar DeRozan deserves a lot of credit for helping keep the team afloat despite all of the injuries they are currently facing.
