Chicago Bulls' DeMar DeRozan stays hot, eclipses Wilt Chamberlain's record scoring streak

CHICAGO -- Chicago Bulls All-Star forward DeMar DeRozan stayed on a roll offensively heading into the All-Star break and set an NBA record in Wednesday's 125-118 victory over the Sacramento Kings.

DeRozan scored 38 points on 16-for-27 (59%) shooting Wednesday, making him the first player in NBA history to score 35 points while shooting better than 50% from the field in seven consecutive games. DeRozan surpassed a mark set by Wilt Chamberlain, who put together two such streaks of six games in a row, the last of which came in 1963.

"Just to be in the record books along with staples of basketball history -- [I'm] speechless," DeRozan said following Wednesday's game. "As a kid, as a fan of the history of the game, being in the league as long as I've been in the league, things like that continue to make me even more humble.

"It's something I'll never take for granted. And the crazy thing is, I feel like I missed eight easy shots I normally would have made. I felt like I had a bad shooting night, honestly."

During his streak, perhaps going 16-for-27 is what qualifies as a bad shooting night for DeRozan. He is averaging 38.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists on 60.7% shooting in his past seven games.

DeRozan has also scored at least 30 points in eight consecutive games, the longest streak by a Bulls player since Michael Jordan in 1996. DeRozan is tied with Philadelphia's Joel Embiid for the longest streak of 30 or more points by a player this season.

Asked to describe his current scoring run and how locked in he feels, DeRozan replied: "I can't."

"I'll be honest with you, I can't. I can't describe it," he said. "It's one of those things where I'm completely locked in as soon as I come to work. Understanding, I want to be able to leave work with a win by any means necessary."

DeRozan's performance has helped carry the Bulls to five consecutive wins, despite fellow All-Star Zach LaVine missing the past three games to see a specialist in Los Angeles about his left knee injury.

With a win Wednesday, the Bulls enter the All-Star break, at least, tied with the Miami Heat for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

"I'm hopeful that we can get whole at some point, I think I'd like to see what this group can do whole," Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. "I am very, very grateful and appreciative, up until this point in the All-Star break -- we've had some really good moments and some not so great moments, which is typical -- the way these guys have continued to fight, regardless if it's been a win or a loss."

Comments

From Deep: At long last, Nikola Jokic's Nuggets can envision getting to the top of the mountain

Jamal Murray tore his ACL on April 12, 2021. Leading up to that night, he'd been playing at an All-NBA level for two months: In a 25-game stretch, Murray averaged 24.1 points on .509/.459/.935 shooting splits, 4.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists. He was even more efficient than he was in the bubble playoffs, and his defense had improved, too. Murray only got to play with Aaron Gordon, the Denver Nuggets' big trade-deadline addition, for five games. They won them all except the one in which Murray got injured. In 110 minutes, their new starting five scored slightly more efficiently than any iteration of the Kevin Durant-era death lineup in Golden State and defended like a top-five team. Two Nikola Jokic MVP awards later, Murray is back. So is Michael Porter Jr., who signed a five-year extension about a year ago and needed back surgery nine games into the 2020-21 season. The Nuggets remember how easily everything slid into place with Gordon in the mix. Newcomer Kentavious Caldwell-Pop...

Klay Thompson to sit out Warriors preseason games in Japan as Kerr says he needs more time to ramp-up

Klay Thompson may have returned healthy to the Golden State Warriors last season, but the scars from his two missed seasons are still quite visible. The Warriors played their first of two preseason games against the Washington Wizards on Friday and will play another on Sunday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that Thompson will not be playing at all during the trip to Japan. "Just feel more comfortable giving him a little more of a ramp up," Kerr said before Friday's victory over Washington. "He's just not quite ready to play at this point just based on where, you know, we're so early in camp. We just want to be safe and make sure he gets a good ramp-up before he plays in games." Typically, so little time to ramp up wouldn't be a problem for a veteran in a preseason context. The games tend to be so low-impact and demand so few minutes out of a team's best players that they can safely jog through them. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green played 1...

LeBron James says he has 'no relationship' with Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

It's not a matter of if LeBron James passes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the No. 1 spot on the NBA's all-time scoring list, it's when. James sits just 1,326 points away from passing the Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Lakers legend, a milestone that should happen at some point this season given James is still performing at peak levels and is coming off a year in which he averaged over 30 points a night. If he averages around the same amount of points as he did a season ago for the Lakers, James could break the record somewhere in the middle of the season, assuming he stays healthy. It's a highly anticipated moment heading into the season, but in regards to LeBron's thoughts about and his relationship with Abdul-Jabbar, he didn't have much to say on the matter. Following the Lakers first preseason game Monday night, a reporter asked James what his thoughts were on the Lakers legend and if the two had any relationship, to which LeBron gave a very short answer. "No...

Crossover World

Search This Blog