Luol Deng was like a Bull in a china shop, only instead of fragile dinnerware, the Chicago forward spent the night breaking the Nets defense.
Much like he has done all season with Derrick Rose recovering from knee surgery, Deng packed the offensive punch for the Bulls, scoring a team-high 15 points to go with 10 rebounds and four assists in a 90-82 series-tying Game 2 win over the Nets at Barclays Center last night.
“I felt as a leader that my attitude the whole day was that everyone stays ready,” Deng said. “I know what I can do. I just have to make sure everybody is ready for the intensity of the game.”
Deng was coming off of one of his worst performances of the season in Game 1. The 6-foot-9 forward, who led Chicago with 16.6 points in the regular season, managed to score just six points on 3-of-11 shooting with two rebounds in the Bulls’ 106-89 loss Saturday night.
“Last game, I felt like I wasn’t aggressive enough,” Deng said. “I’m confident in my game … and as long as the game stayed close, I was going to get good looks.”
Deng topped his scoring and rebounding totals from Game 1 in the first quarter alone by scoring seven of the Bulls’ 20 points and pulling in four rebounds.
One key was the presence of All-Star center Joakim Noah — who is coping with a case of plantar fasciitis — for 25 gutsy minutes. Deng, a small forward, had been forced to spend time matching up against bigger players at power forward in the absence of Noah for the majority of the season’s final three weeks.
“We needed Luol,” Noah said. “He’s the glue to this team. He’s been doing that for us all year. If we’re going to beat Brooklyn, we need a big Luol Deng.”
Deng, 28, led the NBA in minutes per game in each of the past two seasons. He also has been dealing with a hip injury that forced him to miss two games earlier this month and has played through a torn left wrist ligament since January 2012.
But in the playoffs there are no excuses.
“If you don’t want to play that many minutes,” Deng said, “you can just step into the office and say ‘Coach, I don’t want to play this many minutes.’ ”