Before you get all excited and sweaty about this “good game” from Nikola Vucevic, remember that he let Brook Lopez drop 27 on him, and sent him to the line for the game-winning free throws with less than a second remaining.
He also held Lopez to 0 rebounds, but that’s more of a “Lopez literally can’t grab rebounds” thing than a “Vucevic is an unstoppable boxout beast” thing.
If you want to get excited about his offensive contributions tonight, that’s fine. Basketball is a game played on both ends of the court, but fine. But DownToBuck cares a lot about defense, in fact he cares about it more than offense, which is why DeAndre Liggins is his favorite player. We already know that Vucci Mane is a sick offensive player. He’s basically got it all when it comes to scoring, and he’s flashing some Jokic-esque handoff ability to rack up those cheap assists.
He’s been the one constant in all these years of Magic suckage, though. It probably is just a coincidence, but maybe he’s a fundamentally flawed player who you can never win with????? Maybe.