NEW YORK – In DeMar DeRozan’s mind it was just another sparring session with Team Mayweather.
Another hot Las Vegas afternoon in the boxing ring, anticipating the opponent’s slightest tell.
Unfortunately for Knicks guard Quentin Grimes, it was his feet.
“They were jittery,’’ DeRozan said.
And with 0.4 on the clock, jittery feet quickly turned into a knockout.
Friday was just the latest DeRozan last-second game-winner with the Bulls, and maybe the most important. It not only kept a three-game winning streak alive and well, but also showed that this team might not be in the disarray that it appeared to be in at the start of the road trip.
That’s what DeRozan does. He calms chaos.
Last Sunday, the Bulls were a team getting embarrassed by the undermanned Timberwolves and turning on each other in the halftime locker room. By late Friday, they were a loose group all smiles and laughs, thanks to DeRozan’s latest heroics.
Down one and with six seconds left, DeRozan got the inbounds, and waited to see what teammate Zach LaVine was going to do with his pick. If he slipped the screen, DeRozan would find him going to the hoop. If the Knicks doubled DeRozan, LaVine would get the long jumper. And if the Knicks defenders switched? Well, ding-ding, Round 15.
Anyone that knows DeRozan also knows the high regard in which he holds boxing. Enough so that he had made it a part of his offseason training program, working with the likes of Floyd Mayweather and his camp.
He’s also incorporated his boxing skill into his hoop game. Grimes found that out.
“It’s a feel. It’s about your initial reaction to whatever you do, what they did earlier [in the game],’’ DeRozan said. “If a player is jittery, if their feet are moving in a way where you can see they’re anticipating something. You kind of read it like that. It’s like a boxer that fakes at you just to set up a jab to the stomach. That’s how I look at it and see things when I’m in those isolation moments.’’
So what did Grimes do exactly?
“His feet. They were jittery,’’ DeRozan said. “I knew he wasn’t going to block my shot. So I wasn’t going to pump fake because of his feet. Just get to my spot. Wasn’t going to fade, either. If he tried to contest me close, I knew there would be contact.’’
He did, and there was.
But the free throw miss was moot. The damage was done.
“I think in those moments things kind of calm for him, and he slows his mind, thinks about what’s going to happen,’’ Bulls coach Billy Donovan said of DeRozan’s late-game ability. “As things are unfolding they happen to slow for him. He doesn’t get caught up in a lot of the craziness – clock, time – he knows, ‘OK, I’ve done this hundreds and thousands of times in my career.’ Not so much making it, but working on those shots where he gets himself to a quiet place and he knows what he’s got to do.’’
That’s why DeRozan was tied for ninth in clutch-shot moments last season, as well as leading the league in total points in the fourth quarter of games.
He’s currently fifth in fourth-quarter scoring this season, but that doesn’t mean his teammates are confused about who should have the ball in his hands with the game on the line.
“We’ve seen him do that all the time, throughout his whole career,’’ LaVine said of DeRozan. “You get out of his way and let him do what he does. I was excited to help us get close and then put the ball in his hands. We’ve seen it before.’’
