Duds from Chicago Bulls horrifying loss to the Rockets: DeMar DeRozan
There’s no doubt about it, the former San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors star shooting guard/forward DeMar DeRozan had a true off night for the Bulls in this loss to the Rockets. The Bulls are just going to need DeRozan to be better down the stretch oftentimes if this team wants to win these games as they should.
But that is an unrealistic amount of pressure to expect DeRozan to perform like a First or Second All-NBA Team caliber night in and night out. This is why the Bulls are supposed to have other sources of scoring. Star shooting guard Zach LaVine had a decent fourth quarter but still had three turnovers while shooting 33 percent from beyond the arc and 60 percent from the free-throw line.
Meanwhile, DeRozan finished up this game with just 17 points on a whopping 19 field goal attempts. He shot 6-of-19 from the field, 0-of-4 from beyond the arc, and a perfect 5-of-5 from the free-throw line. Anytime that it looked like DeRozan was finally starting to find his rhythm shooting from the field and getting to the charity stripe, the Rockets would respond with a big bucket.
Along with his 17 points in this game, DeRozan had five rebounds, seven assists, one steal, no blocks, and two turnovers. What is crazy about DeRozan’s stat line in this loss to the Rockets is the fact that he was a team-high +13, despite shooting just 31.5 percent from the field. But we’ll need to see a strong response from DeRozan against the Orlando Magic on the road on Nov. 26, just like we saw from Lonzo in this game.