Chicago Bulls Stud: Zach LaVine
Not much to debate on this one. LaVine went nuclear in the first half offensively and put on an absolute show. Obviously, it doesn’t mean much in a loss, but it was still a stud performance on an individual player level.
He finished with a career-high 50 points on 18-31 shooting. LaVine added 8 rebounds and 5 assists to his eye-popping box score but obviously would have rather picked up the win instead of the box score stats.
In reality, it’s tough to imagine what more he could have done. The Hawks made adjustments at halftime that forced the Bulls guard to count on his teammates and they failed to answer the call for the most part.
It wasn’t surprising to see the Hawks doubling him so aggressively after the break considering what he did in half number one.
39 points at the break is absolutely absurd and LaVine did it efficiently. He shot 13-19 from the field, including 7-9 from behind the arc. He also knocked down all six of his attempts from the charity stripe as the cherry on top.
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When the Hawks started forcing the ball out of his hands the game started swinging back in their favor. LaVine didn’t force bad shot after bad shot as he might have in the past, instead opting to make the right basketball play and move the ball to the open man.
There is a reason all five of his assist came in the second half. In the first, he was working against one defender and knew every time he touched the ball he could score at will. In the second,d he was getting the ball to the right guys.
Ultimately, the team just didn’t have enough support for him to hold off the Hawks.