Anthony Gruppuso – USA Today Sports Images
The Chicago Bulls are coming into a do-or-die game seven with the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday in Brooklyn. The winner will advance to the second round of the NBA Playoffs while the loser will be watching the rest of the postseason from home. The Bulls held a 3-1 lead in the series, but have since lost the last two games to make this game seven necessary.
The narrative for this series, and this season really, for the Bulls has been injuries. They are still without their star point guard, Derrick Rose, and that’s just the start. Several players were battling the flu in game six. Joakim Noah is dealing with plantar fasciitis in his foot. Kirk Hinrich has missed games five and six with injuries. They are just an extremely banged up team.
Nate Robinson, the oft-criticized point guard, has come up huge for the Bulls in this series, though, as the team tries to weather through all of these injuries. He even played extremely well offensively in game six, despite the fact that he was one of the players fighting a battle with the flu.
For the series, though, Robinson has played 29.5 minutes per game and has seen action in all six games. In that time he has averaged a team-high 17.8 points per game and has averaged 3.5 assists and 0.8 steals per game. The most impressive part for the often trigger-happy Robinson is that he has shot 53 percent from the field in the series and 38.5 percent from long range.
Especially with Hinrich out of the lineup, Robinson has needed to step up and he has done just that. Robinson isn’t near the defender that Hinrich is, but he’s also a much bigger offensive threat and has affected the game in that manner. If the Bulls didn’t have Robinson in this series, there’s a good chance that they wouldn’t even have a chance to win the series in game seven.
Cody Williams is a Senior NBA Writer with Rant Sports. Follow Cody on Twitter @TheSizzle20 and like his Facebook page.
