Nikola Mirotic has turned into a matchup nightmare. Kris Dunn looks like one of the NBA’s most promising young point guards, and Bobby Portis and David Nwaba have provided a spark off the bench.
For a team that was supposed to be tanking this year, the Chicago Bulls look awfully competitive all of a sudden.
Led by Mirotic and Dunn, Chicago on Monday night beat Philadelphia 117-115 for their sixth consecutive victory on the heels of a 10-game slide — a turnaround unlike any other in NBA history.
Photo: EPA
The Bulls are perfect since Mirotic returned on Dec. 8, after missing the start of the season with facial fractures following a fight with Portis.
“I think the biggest thing is, the reason why we are winning, is because we are having fun with it,” Dunn said. “When you are having fun, when you are winning, things [are] a lot smoother.”
This was not exactly the plan for Chicago after they went 41-41 last season and lost to Boston in the first round of the playoffs.
All-Star Jimmy Butler was in June traded to Minnesota and Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo and Taj Gibson departed for greener pastures as Chicago embarked on a potentially painful rebuilding process.
Then Mirotic and Portis got into an altercation during practice on Oct. 17, and the Bulls became the laughingstock of the league. Portis was suspended for eight games and Mirotic needed weeks to recover.
For a while, no one was sure whether Mirotic and Portis would be able to play together again, but they figured it out over time, validating Chicago’s patient approach to the situation.
“I was very, very excited to start the season,” Mirotic said. “Putting in all the work and gaining 20 pounds [9kg] of [muscle] on my body, but sometimes things just happen [for] a reason. You never know why is the reason.”
Mirotic was maddeningly inconsistent during his first three years in the league, but he has been an absolute terror since coming back from the pre-season fight, averaging 20.3 points and 7.3 rebounds during the streak.
He has been more aggressive after deferring to his teammates early in his career. Off-season weightlifting work has helped with his low-post game and defense.
“He’s a real threat,” Philadelphia coach Brett Brown said. “I think when we study, what does a modern-day player look like, it looks like him. It looks like him. Big athlete, got a bounce, can make shots and seemingly he’s been one of the key things to connect the dots.”
The 208cm Mirotic can shoot over smaller players or take the ball to the basket when he is guarded by a big man. With Dunn, Portis and rookie Lauri Markkanen creating their own matchup problems, the Bulls are becoming a tough team to defend.
Chicago (9-20) had seven players score in double figures in the victory over Philadelphia, averaging 111 points during their win streak.
Next up for Chicago is a visit from lowly Orlando, losers of five in a row and 6-7. Then they hit the road for a challenging three-game trip to Cleveland, Boston and Milwaukee, and Zach LaVine could make his Bulls debut next month in his return from knee surgery.
After looking completely lost at times during a 3-20 start, there is suddenly reason for hope.
“It’s still about taking positive steps and our team has done that in these past couple weeks,” Chicago coach Fred Hoiberg said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier