Vucevic happy for Mirotic
CHICAGO — Orlando Magic center
and Chicago Bulls forward share more than a first name and a native country.
Vucevic and Mirotic played against each other as children in Montenegro, and they’re good friends now.
No wonder Vucevic feels happy for Mirotic these days.
In mid-October, Mirotic suffered facial fractures when he and teammate
got into a fistfight during a practice. Mirotic finally made his season debut on Dec. 8.
The Bulls carried a sixgame winning streak into their matchup Wednesday night against the Magic, and Mirotic was a primary reason for that sudden success.
In those six victories, Mirotic averaged 20.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. He also made 50.0 percent of his 3-point shots.
“I’m happy for Vucevic said.
“I know he put a lot of work in over the summer. Then it was unfortunate for him that he got injured and had to wait to make his debut and show what he worked on. But he’s been playing great. He’s been him,” playing really great, carrying them big time in the streak. So I’m happy for him. I’m happy that he’s playing well and he’s shown everything that he’s worked on. You can see how effective he’s been on the court.” the Bulls’
scored 14 first-quarter points to help the Bulls beat the Magic 105-83.
On Wednesday, Magic coach asked rookie to prevent that from happening again.
Vogel employed a starting lineup with Iwundu at shooting guard.
“I put a personal challenge on him to slow down Justin Holiday,” Vogel said. “He [Iwundu] has the defensive talent — not the experience — to be a guy that can go out and slow a guy like that down. So I put a challenge on him to compete in that matchup.”
Vogel said he also started Iwundu over veteran
to prevent the second unit from having too little experience.
Adding Mack to the second unit raised the second On Nov. 3, unit’s experience level.
“It feels pretty good that the coach has confidence in me to go out there and handle a task like that,” Iwundu said before tipoff.
“Holiday is a great player, but at the same time, I pride my game on a lot of defense, so it’s a challenge that I’m willing to accept.”
Coincidentally, Iwundu celebrated his 23rd birthday on Wednesday.
The Bulls entered Wednesday on a six-game winning streak.
Before that winning streak, they had lost 10 consecutive games. Chicago coach
received some congratulatory text messages from other people in the league.
“This coaching business, it’s a tight fraternity,” Hoiberg said.
“You hear from people when you have losing streaks and you hear from people when you have winning streaks.
“So it’s good to have friends in this business that you can lean on and talk to through the good times and the bad.” Rookie forward
played Wednesday for the second time since he missed 17 consecutive games because of a sprained ankle.
Isaac was held to just under 17 minutes in his return on Sunday, but Vogel was given permission by the team’s medical staff to play Isaac around 20 minutes Wednesday against the Bulls.
“We’re still just obviously managing a great deal of rust and being behind in his conditioning,” Vogel said. “We’ve just got to keep an eye on that.” The Magic played without their two leading scorers, and and sixth again man Wednesday night.
Vogel was asked how the rest of his team can succeed.
“Play the game with the pass,” Vogel said. “We’re playing a lot more through Vooch: the pick-and-pop game, top of the key, the elbow and in the post.”