The NBA Play-In Tournament is set to get underway on Tuesday night, with the seven and eight seeds from each conference taking each other on. On Wednesday night, the losers from these games will figure out who their opponent in the second Play-In game will be when the nine and ten seeds take on each other. In the Eastern Conference, the Chicago Bulls will be going up against the Toronto Raptors.
This game will be an interesting contest between two teams that didn't come close to meeting expectations in the 2022-23 season. Both squads have a lot of talent, but always found a way to disappoint. For the Bulls, crashing out of the Play-In Tournament would be a worst case scenario, especially considering the strong second-half of the season they put together.
This will be a tough game for both teams, as either one of them could get hot at any moment. For the Bulls, they are going to need a key X-factor to step up for them if they want to get by the Raptors, so let's identify who that X-factor is and see why he is so important to Chicago's quest to advance to the next round of the Play-In Tournament.
Bulls X-factor vs. Raptors: Nikola Vucevic
Part of the reason for the Bulls recent inability to meet expectations is due to star players not living up to their hype. Chicago acquired Nikola Vucevic from the Orlando Magic at the 2021 NBA Trade Deadline when he was playing the best basketball of his career. Yet with the Bulls, he hasn't come close to reaching those same heights.
Now that Vucevic's second full season with Chicago is complete, he's managed to accomplish a rather staggering statistic rarity. Vucevic's main per game averages from the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons are exactly the same (17.6 PPG, 11 RPG, 3.2 APG). It's not as if those are bad numbers, but it feels like Vucevic's play always leaves something to be desired for the Bulls.
Against the Raptors, Vucevic is going to be the key for the Bulls on both sides of the ball. On a team where Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan do most of the work on offense, Vucevic's ability to space the floor on offense and lock down the paint on defense could determine whether Chicago's season lives on or if they will be going on vacation earlier than expected.
Offensively, Vucevic is going to determine whether the Bulls have a big day or struggle for long stretches of the action. Vucevic can get buckets in the paint and at the three-point line, but in order to win this game, he is going to have to knock down his threes. If Vucevic hits his shots, that pulls Jakob Poeltl out of the paint, and opens things up for Chicago; if he can't, Poeltl can stay home and make life increasingly difficult for a Bulls team that only shot 28.9 threes per game this season, easily the lowest in the league.
On defense, Vucevic is going to have to make life difficult on the interior for the Raptors. Toronto shot just 33.5 percent on their threes this season, which was the third lowest percentage in the league, and they don't have a true sharpshooter who can space the floor for them. They are going to try to get things going in the paint, because if they can't, chances are they will lose this game.
Vucevic will once again spend most of his time going against Poeltl, but many of the Raptors top options on offense will be driving towards the paint. Pascal Siakam and Scottie Barnes are two of their other top guys on offense who spend a lot of time inside the three-point arc. Vucevic will have to handle Poeltl, while also providing help if the Raptors other top scorers get momentum towards the paint.
Even when considering players on the Raptors, there probably isn't a player more important in this game than Vucevic, and for the Bulls, that could be a scary proposition. On one hand, he improved his three-point shooting drastically from last season (31.4 percent to 34.9 percent) and turned in one of the best defensive seasons of his career. But again, Vucevic has never really managed to reach expectations in Chicago.
In order for Chicago to win, they are going to need Vucevic to be at his best. He could single-handedly control the pace of this game if he gets into a rhythm, or he could open a door for the Raptors to punch their ticket to play the loser of the Miami Heat-Atlanta Hawks contest. It's not a stretch to say that this game could define Vucevic's tenure with the Bulls, and it will be interesting to see how he ends up performing.
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