Chicago Bulls at Miami Heat
Team Totals: Bulls 102, Heat 103.5
Injury Report: Ayo Dosunmu (Q, quad) Alex Caruso (Q, foot), Andre Drummond (Q, ankle), Terry Rozier (O, neck), Duncan Robinson (P, back)
Bulls projected starters: Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, Javonte Green, DeMar DeRozan, Nikola Vucevic
Heat projected starters: Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez, Caleb Martin, Nikola Jovic, Bam Adebayo
Donovan quotes: Said Caruso felt like he couldn’t move on Wednesday, said Caruso was able to disrupt the on-ball scoring from the Hawks, said the Heat are battle-tested and they have to play well.
Spo quotes: Said Jimmy was really struggling to move out there, said the 76ers just made bigger plays, said Duncan Robinson is going to make progress and he didn’t have time to ramp up, said Duncan is “definitely” making progress.
Stats and Notes:
*So I didn’t even add the season stats here because they don’t really matter. Jimmy Butler is out for several weeks and Alex Caruso has a “significant” foot sprain. Woj did dial it back on his report on Thursday, but it’s worth a mention that Billy Donovan ruled him out during the broadcast. This marks the fifth time that Caruso has injured his left ankle this season (Wednesday, April 8, March 23, Dec. 14, and Dec. 8). He’s also had left toe issues in March, February, December, and November, and he had left foot issues last season in March and February (also in 2021). I would be pretty surprised if he suited up. The Bulls losing Caruso would be a huge deal. A team that already ranked 22nd on defense gets substantially worse. Caruso is top five in D rating on/off among players with 2,000 minutes played, which means this version of the Bulls may be like tanking-level bad should Caruso miss this one. For Miami’s defense, it’s not too big of a loss on Jimmy. We’ve seen them show up since January as one of the league’s best transition and rim defenses. It’s not going to be too easy for the Bulls to score today.
*Holy Coby White on Wednesday. He scored 27 points on his 27 drives on 10-of-11 shooting. He just torched the Hawks all night with his downhill game, including his 16 points as a PNR handler. That play has been his jam lately with 13.0 PNR handler points in his last five. He is locked in right now. The bad news is that Miami is one of the best teams at taking away the downhill game, but Coby may still be able to get his floater game going. His stats against the Heat aren’t too bad with 21/6/6. He’s playing so well right now that it’s hard to not get excited about him.
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