The Chicago Bulls are coming off a win against the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday night that saw them move to 3-2 in the five games played since Zach LaVine entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
It has not always been pretty in the five games played without LaVine, but no one expected it to be. The Bulls are still learning to play with each other and are now forced to do so in must-win games despite not having their best player available.
Even though one of the five games played resulted in the team’s ugliest loss of the season, there are a few players on the Bulls roster that have stepped up in the sum of the five games played. Remember, this team had won just 3 of 11 games after the NBA trade deadline but before LaVine was ruled out indefinitely.
By matching that win total in the five games without their all-star guard, obviously players on the team have stepped up in big ways. Some more obvious than others, but all equally important, one could argue.
Chicago Bulls Stepping up with Zach LaVine Out: Garrett Temple
The first player that deserves mentioning here is the man who has slotted into the starting unit due to LaVine’s absence; Garrett Temple. Temple stepped up right when his team needed him to despite coming straight off the injury report in doing so.
Leading up to being tossed into the starting lineup, Temple had played a grand total of 10 minutes in the month of April. That is from April 1st to April 14th.
Since April 16th, when Temple was asked to join the starters, he has played 134 minutes for the Bulls. Without a doubt, there was some good luck in the timing here for Billy Donovan, but it still needs to be noted how ready Temple was to step up and step in.
In the Bulls recent five games, he has shot 9-21 (42.9 percent) from behind the arc while playing the third-most total minutes.
Chicago Bulls Stepping up with Zach LaVine Out: Nikola Vucevic
Vucevic should be expected to make a list such as this one, and he certainly has earned his spot. Despite the small sample size of games including his worst performance as a member of the Chicago Bulls, Vooch is still one of the key reasons the Bulls are 3-2 in their last five.
In that stretch, he leads the team in scoring at 21 points per game, leads the team in rebounding by a wide margin and has flat out dominated the opponents in all three of the Bulls wins.
Without him, it is hard to imagine what exactly the Bulls would be doing on offense possession after possession with the rest of the group they have. Vooch has been the engine that has kept the Bulls running and without him, there is no doubt the team would be 0-5 in the last five games.
He is also averaging 4.2 assists per game in the Bulls last five games, ranking him third on the team only behind the team’s point guards. While Vooch is and always will be a great passer, he has stepped up his focus on getting his teammates involved knowing LaVine is not around to create open looks for players like he has all season.
By doing that, the Bulls are able to get the well-balanced offensive attack that they need to make up for the scoring they are missing. They have a number of players in their rotation who are not going to get themselves going offensively, so Vucevic stepping up and getting the whole team going on offense is a true sign of leadership and on-court awareness.
Chicago Bulls Stepping up with Zach LaVine Out: Coby White
Last but certainly not least is Coby White, who has taken full advantage of the opportunity LaVine’s absence has provided him individually and as a result, has been crucial in the Bulls success over their last five games.
After a move to the bench shortly after the all-star break, White found himself struggling to make a consistent impact. Once LaVine was ruled out, head coach Billy Donovan inserted White back into the starting unit to provide a scoring punch that would be missing without him.
White has done more than just provide that scoring punch. For the first time in a long time, he is playing like a point guard more than a scoring guard.
His 17.2 points and 6.4 assists per game are nice, but they are nothing when compared to the almost non-existent turnovers he has been committing. Over the last five games, in 30.9 minutes per contest, he is averaging just 1.4 turnovers per game.
That is 7 turnovers in 154 minutes of being on the court running the offense. It is not what any Bulls fans would have expected but it is a welcome tendency to see the young guard displaying.
More importantly, he seems to have control of both the game and himself like never before. Sure, he will still have bad shooting nights and moments where he is going too fast, but the control he has taken of the game recently has been crucial in the Bulls winning three out of their last five games.
White was atop the list of players that needed to step up with LaVine going out for multiple games, but what he has done is even better than I could have imagined. It seems like he may have a real chance of remaining in the starting five when the team is back at full strength.