Veteran forward DeMar DeRozan has a pretty good idea about what’s coming in the Bulls’ play-in opener Wednesday against the Raptors.
Straight from the mind of mad scientist/Raptors coach Nick Nurse, DeRozan expects a game plan that will test his patience and likely will put his teammates in some awkward roles they’re going to have to fill.
‘‘Playing against Nick and those guys, they try to do everything in their power to make sure I don’t beat them,’’ DeRozan said Monday. ‘‘We’ve got a couple of days to game-plan and put together something. I’m aware of it, for sure. For my sake, I definitely have my own theory of how I’m going to deal with it.’’
It’s a game plan DeRozan has seen from Nurse before.
After watching DeRozan average more than 27 points against the Raptors last season, Nurse decided that wouldn’t happen this season. In back-to-back games between the teams in November, the Raptors threw double-team after double-team at DeRozan, blitzing him whenever he had the ball and testing the rest of the Bulls’ roster.
The Raptors won the first of those games in Toronto, with DeRozan scoring 20 points. But the Bulls responded with a victory at the United Center, with DeRozan being limited to nine points but handing out seven assists.
The Raptors then prevailed in the rubber match in late February in Toronto, with DeRozan scoring only 13 points and again getting Nurse’s full attention.
The blueprint is obvious, so how can the Bulls counter it?
‘‘If I was a coach, I’d try to limit DeMar and [guard] Zach [LaVine] as much as possible and then have the others beat you,’’ guard Patrick Beverley said. ‘‘That’s going to be most teams’ plan going in. It’s the playoffs. You’ve got to give something up. We’re ready.’’
What that means is that Beverley will have to be a threat from outside and that center Nikola Vucevic and guard Alex Caruso had better be ready to shoot from there, too.
In the Bulls’ loss to the Raptors on Feb. 28, Vucevic was 4-for-6 from three-point range, but Beverley, LaVine and Caruso were a combined 3-for-13.
The Bulls will have three-point shots, but can they make them?
‘‘This is the time of the year where you’re trying to generate good shots,’’ coach Billy Donovan said. ‘‘[Toronto] is really good at forcing a lot of turnovers and really good at offensive rebounding, so the ball has got to move and we’ve got to make good decisions with the ball.
‘‘There’s going to be opportunities for a lot of different guys, and . . . they’ve got to be able to step up and shoot the ball with confidence. That’s where we’ve tried to get to, so it’s not so one-person-centric.’’
The Bulls finished the regular season ranked 16th in three-point percentage (36.1%). But since acquiring Beverley and adding him to the starting mix, that percentage is up a tick. So are the number of three-pointers they have taken and made.
Beverley has a knack for getting players in the right spots offensively, especially late in games.
Then again, Wednesday isn’t the regular season. It’s a win-or-go-home, single-elimination pressure cooker. Can the Bulls deliver under those circumstances?
‘‘What you can control is your effort, especially on the defensive end,’’ Beverley said. ‘‘From that standpoint, I think that everyone is ready and locked in.’’
