‘Phenomenal’ Zach LaVine leads fightback as Chicago Bulls eliminate Toronto Raptors

LOS ANGELES – Zach LaVine led a second-half fightback as the Chicago Bulls eliminated the Toronto Raptors from the National Basketball Association’s play-in tournament on Wednesday, with some help from DeMar DeRozan’s daughter’s “free-throw defence”.

LaVine finished with 39 points – 30 of them scored after half-time – in a 109-105 road victory for the Bulls, who will now face the Miami Heat on Friday, with the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference play-offs up for grabs.

LaVine and former Toronto star DeRozan showed superb composure down the stretch as Chicago fought back from a 19-point, third-quarter deficit to snatch a win that left Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena in stunned silence.

DeRozan finished with 23 points, while Nikola Vucevic finished with 14 points, 13 rebounds and four assists. Patrick Williams chipped in with 10 points off the bench.

Chicago coach Billy Donovan hailed LaVine’s role in the comeback as “extraordinary”.

“He was phenomenal. What he did in that third quarter and going into the fourth quarter – it would have been very difficult for us to have won that game had he not done that,” Donovan said.

DeRozan added: “There’re not too many people in this league that have the talent that Zach has... I’ve always been a fan of his before he came to Chicago.”

Toronto, who looked to be in complete control for long periods of the game as Chicago struggled to find their offensive and defensive rhythm, were left ruing a litany of missed free throws.

The Raptors shot only 18-of-36 from the foul line, a 50 per cent success rate which was in stark contrast to the Bulls, who made 18 of their 22 free throws.

“That’s a lot of misses,” said Toronto coach Nick Nurse.

“We left a lot of points on the floor there for sure...

“If you miss more than 10 free throws in a game, it’s hard to win.”

DeRozan’s nine-year-old daughter Diar played her part in that, going viral with her shrieks to distract Raptors players at the free-throw line.

ESPN called it “perhaps the best free-throw defence in history”.

“I kept hearing something during the game during free throws,” Bulls guard DeRozan told ESPN.

“I looked back like... dang, that’s my daughter screaming...

“My daughter called me the other day when she was getting out of school and she just said, ‘Dad, can I come to the Toronto game?

“I almost said no because she’s in school back home... But she kept asking... and I said, ‘All right, you can miss one day of school and come to a game’. I’m glad I did. I owe her some money, for sure.”

Pascal Siakam (32 points) and Fred VanVleet (26) were outstanding for Toronto.

And VanVleet electrified the home crowd with a buzzer-beating three-pointer from near half-court as the second quarter ended.

That gave Toronto a 58-47 lead at half-time and the Raptors kept up their scoring momentum early in the second half, extending their lead to 19 points as Chicago’s offence sputtered.

But the pendulum swung back in the visitors’ favour once LaVine found his range.

Toronto were thrown a lifeline with 12 seconds remaining when a contentious foul call went their way with the Bulls leading 107-104.

But Siakam, a career 78 per cent free-throw shooter, missed two of his three shots from the foul line, before Vucevic won a foul and calmly drained his two free-throws to seal the win.

Meanwhile, Josh Giddey recorded 31 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds as the Oklahoma City Thunder remained alive for a Western Conference play-off spot by notching a 123-118 victory over the hosts New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday in a play-in game.

They face the Minnesota Timberwolves next on Friday.

The winners will earn the No. 8 seed in the West and meet the top-seeded Denver Nuggets in the first round of the NBA play-offs.
AFP, REUTERS