basket ball info

Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls, is playing great basketball under Tom Thibodeau's new offensive system.

Deng had an outstanding preseason and on Friday in a match-up against the Pacers, he scored 29 points, was 12/12 from the foul line, and shot 3/5 from behind the arc in 30 minutes of play. Deng is obviously playing better and his new coach has confidence in him.

"I always thought he was a guy that you worried about because he was capable of having a big game," Thibodeau said after Friday’s 102-74 win over the Pacers in the Bulls’ preseason finale. "All the things that he does puts constant pressure on your defense. It does not matter what play you are running because Luol is clever without the ball. He knows how to cut behind the defense. He's very good at finding open areas and attacking the basket. You add that three point shot to his game and it puts even more pressure. The defense is flying out at him and he is making even more good decisions."

Luol Deng looks like he is comfortable with Thibodeau's motion offense and he feels he can get better looks in this system.

"We're really doing a good job of moving the ball," Deng said. "Whenever I'm open I feel like the ball's coming to me. I just feel like the way we move the ball right now is the best that we've done that for a while."

Deng has also been slashing and getting to the foul line more often than usual.

"I didn't tell myself, ‘I'm going to get to the line a certain amount of times’, I just think the way the system is, with me being able to drive and slash, I'm really moving freely on the floor. The spacing is so good, I'm just finding myself aggressively going to the line, driving. I would say I am doing a better job initiating contact than I did in the past." 

Health was a big issue for Deng in the past few years of his career, but this year Deng is healthy and ready to go. Deng got into the best shape of his life this past summer when he played for Great Britain's national team.

"I don't know if it's the most confidence I've felt, but I just felt great this summer," Deng said. "I'm always playing. I don't like to take the summers off or take time off, and I felt like last summer was really hard for me to just sit down with the injury and wait til like three days before preseason and that's when I started really playing live. So it's really different just playing all summer and coming into the preseason in shape and continually playing, so that really helped my confidence."