The Chicago Bulls have been handed an additional benefit of their most vital sport of the postseason push when Atlanta Hawks level guard Trae Young was too sick with a non-COVID sickness to journey to Chicago for Tuesday’s sport.
Young was listed as out Tuesday after affected by a abdomen bug. The Hawks already have been short-handed after ruling out ahead De’Andre Hunter with a bone bruise and muscle pressure in his left knee. But the lack of Young delivered a much bigger blow to the Hawks offense, which is constructed across the sharpshooting guard.
“Obviously he’s a great player,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan mentioned. “I thought last game against him here we fouled him too much, but obviously he’s an elite scorer. He gets a lot of guys involved. When you lose a great player, it always hurts, but they still have a lot of pieces, a lot of personnel.”
Tuesday’s sport carried the best stakes of the ultimate stretch of the season for the Bulls. With a win, they might punch their ticket to the play-in match whereas concurrently leaping over the Hawks within the standings.
Young is averaging 26.2 factors and 9.9 assists this season and scored 34 factors in opposition to the Bulls in December in Atlanta, scorching them behind the arc with seven 3-pointers. In the groups’ final assembly in January on the United Center. Young scored 21 with 13 assists.
“He’s an important part of what we do at a lot of levels,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder mentioned. “That said, everybody knows what an important game this is. He was trying to play today … (but) we’ve got a few other guys who’ve got to pick up the baton and hopefully he’ll be better.”
The Bulls may clinch a play-in place and not using a win Tuesday if the Orlando Magic lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers. But a win would provide even higher footing for the match: a tiebreaker benefit over the Hawks and a vault into the ninth seed.
Each step up the standings supplies a higher benefit. Earning the ninth seed — or the seventh seed by means of a mixture of profitable out and losses by the Miami Heat and Toronto Raptors — would give them home-court benefit of their first sport. And if the Bulls earn the seventh or eighth seed, they might achieve a place within the first spherical of the playoffs with a single win.
It’s simple to tumble down the rabbit gap of “what if” eventualities at this level within the season. But Donovan stays agency that one of the best ways for the Bulls to method this closing week is to concentrate on what they’ll management — profitable their final 4 video games.
“I’m following, but I’m not on my phone checking every quarter,” Donovan mentioned. “I think for us, really it’s about what we do and controlling what we can control. I think in a lot of ways, getting wrapped up in what everybody else is doing, there’s no control in any of that. It’s really (about) what do we have to do.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com