Photo: ESPN/YouTube, Kent Smith/NBAE via Getty
DeMar DeRozan’s nine-year-old daughterDiarhas earned some major credit with her dad after her piercing shrieks during theToronto Raptor’s free throws seemingly helped his team, theChicago Bulls, pull off a thrilling comeback in the must-winNBA Play-In Tournament.
Nearly every time the Raptors were sent to the free-throw line, Diar would get excited and release aneardrum-rattling scream, just as each player was about to shoot their shot. The Raptors missed 18 free throws in the109-105 loss.
When Raptors' All-Star Pascal Siakam was sent to the free-throw line in the last seconds of the game with an opportunity to tie, he ended up missing two of his three attempts, all to the sound of Diar’s screams.
The shrieks were so powerful thatDiar swiftly went viralon social media, with fans calling her the MVP. The ESPN broadcast would even zoom in on Diar during free throws as she sat courtside at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.
DeRozan, 33, who previously played for the Raptors for nine seasons and is still a fan favorite in Toronto, spoke to reporters about his daughter’s new-found fame after the game.
“Man, I just seen it, she went viral,” the six-time NBA-All Star said. “I haven’t let it soak in yet. Everyone keeps saying. But that’s all right. I kept hearing something during the game and it was on a free throw, somebody missed and I was like, ‘Damn, that’s my daughter screaming?’ I was just making sure she was all right, though.”
DeRozan, who scored 23 points to help send the Bulls to the NBA Playoffs, said his daughter wasn’t even initially supposed to be at the game. “What’s crazy, my daughter called me the other day when she was getting out of school… and she said, ‘Dad, can I come to the Toronto game? I remember coming to all the Toronto games’ when she was a kid,” he told reporters.
“And I almost said no because she’s in school back home. She kept asking, she was just adamant about coming and support. And I said, ‘You can miss one day of school and come to a game.’ And I’m glad I did. I owe her some money, for sure,” DeRozan added.
Mark Blinch/NBAE via Getty
If Diar’s tactics were to blame, she helped keep the Raptors to the team’s worst free-throw percentage since 1997, hitting only 50 percent, according toStatMuse.
The Play-In loss could have major repercussions for the Toronto team, withrumors Nick Nursemay have coached his last game.
The Chicago Bulls' battle to make the NBA Playoffs continues Friday againstJimmy Butler’s Miami Heat. The winner of that game will secure the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference and will square off against the number-one-ranked Milwaukee Bucks.
Giannis Antetokounmpoled the Bucks to a 58-24 record this season, the best in the league.
In Wednesday’s other NBA Play-In game, the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the New Orleans Pelicans 123-118 with second-year player Josh Giddey notching 31 points and 10 assists alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 32 points.
The Thunder will face theMinnesota Timberwolveson Friday for the finalNBA Playoffspot in the Western Conference, with the winner to face two-time MVP Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets in round one.
source: people.com
