The regular season ends tonight, and with the Bulls having already clinched home court in the first round, the only real question is who, exactly, they will play. As of now it looks like Milwaukee, though it could still be Washington if the Bulls lose this game and Toronto wins theirs. Other than that, not much else to worry about tonight. Atlanta looks like they’ll be playing most of their guys (including Paul Millsap), but they locked up the #1 seed a few days ago and have been coasting ever since. Despite being one of the most overlooked #1 seeds in history, it’s unlikely that they’ll play their best players crazy minutes in an effort to make some sort of statement against a Bulls team that isn’t nearly as much of a threat as most pundits seem to think. That’s not how they operate.

On the Bulls side, Joakim Noah is out again, though he says he’ll be available for Game 1 on Saturday or Sunday. While if the Bulls have any real aspirations of a title run this year, they absolutely need him at his peak (which he’s been at for maybe 5 games this season), he’s probably not necessary against Milwaukee, and we all know what happened to him last year against Washington. So take your time, Jo.

Key Matchup(s): Derrick Rose vs Derrick Rose.

He’s looked very good the last couple games, albeit against the Sixers and the depleted corpse of Deron Williams. This is one last chance to tune up a bit against a playoff caliber team before the playoffs themselves and Rose’s first postseason game in nearly 3 full years. It was a rocky road, but this team finally has that mythical thing they’ve been waiting three years for: Healthy Derrick Rose. Long may he reign.

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After a very energetic first six minutes, Derrick Rose (9 points, 3-9 shooting) seemed to lose his legs a bit. He shot too many threes, but otherwise seemed to be no worse for the wear. Jimmy Butler (6-10, 19 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds), Taj Gibson (6-12, 15 points), Pau Gasol (4-10, 15 points, 9 rebounds), Nikola Mirotic (3-11, 15 points), and Aaron Brooks (5-11, 13 points) paced the Bulls, who now fall to fourth in the East by virtue of losing a tiebreaker with Toronto.

For the Magic, Victor Oladipo (8-14, 23 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists) and Nikola Vucevic (9-16, 22 points, 7 rebounds) led the way, with contributions from Elfrid Payton (6-14, 17 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists), and Evan Fournier (3-7, 11 points) to lead them to their 2nd victory in three tries against Chicago, and their 24th win overall.

The Bulls play again tomorrow night in Miami.

Player(s) of the Game: Jimmy Butler.

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So that Derrick Rose guy returns tonight, after several not entirely subtle hints over the last few days. With five games left in the regular season (including tonight) it seems as though he should have enough time to get back into a groove of sorts before the playoffs begin. As the Bulls are pretty much locked into their current playoff trajectory, it’ll be nice to have something worth watching. With how he runs, knee injuries are always going to be a danger for Derrick, but it seems this particular injury (right meniscus) is a thing of the past, given how generally impossible it is to tear a meniscus that no longer exists. It’ll undoubtedly come back to hurt him later in his career (ask Dwyane Wade), it’s a positive for the short term, both in shutting up the sort who would accuse Rose of not trying his hardest to play (those sorts generally shouldn’t be paid any heed regardless), and in his prognosis for the impending playoff run and the next few seasons. Knee injuries are just as much a mental hurdle as a physical one, and having his third knee injury NOT be his third season ending knee injury has to at least bolster his confidence a bit.

Now we just have to hope he’s still good. It’s been a mixed bag this season, of course, and while he’ll be on a minutes restriction, tonight is the first step to seeing what this team really has in store for the likes of Cleveland and Atlanta.

Key Matchup(s): Derrick Rose vs Elfrid Payton

Payton is as tenacious as they come and a virtual lock for First Team All-Rookie. He’ll pressure the ball as well as any guard Rose is likely to face the rest of the season, and should present a great challenge for our Returning Savior (TM 2011-2013).

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In a game that was both closer and more of a blowout than the scoreboard might indicate, the Bulls fell at home against Memphis. After a rough first three quarters, including a 32 point third for Memphis, the Bulls fought their way back in, mainly on the strength of Nikola Mirotic (6-13, 18 points, 12 rebounds) and Tony Snell (7-13, 21 points), both of whom started hitting basically everything they threw up for a few minutes, eventually tying the game at 88. Memphis called a timeout and calmly, methodically ran the Bulls into the ground to close it out. Curiously, Thibs took Snell out and started running the offense through Pau Gasol (6-14, 13 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists), who didn’t have his best game, counting stats aside.

On the Memphis side of things, Marc Gasol (10-16, 23 points), Jeff Green (7-11, 19 points, 7 rebounds), Zach Randolph (7-12, 16 points, 9 rebounds), and Tony Allen (5-8, 11 points, 3 steals) led the way for the #2 squad in the Western Conference, who now stand at a sneaky 43-18.

The Bulls were paced by Mirotic and Snell, but several others had solid performances. Notably, Kirk Hinrich (3-5, 7 points) looked lively for the first time since Derrick Rose went out. E’Twuan Moore (3-6, 7 points) also chipped in. While I wouldn’t say it’s time for alarm, it’s at least time for concern. The Bulls are 3-6 without Derrick Rose, and while his plan is to return, if he doesn’t bring the version of himself we saw before the All-Star break, this might be just as short a playoff run as the last couple years. Fighting valiantly and losing is all well and good, but it’s still losing.

The Bulls (39-26) next play Wednesday in Philadelphia.

Player(s) of the Game: Nikola Mirotic and Tony Snell

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Coming off winning Western Conference Player of the Month and missing only game after having (minor) facial surgery, Westbrook has recorded a triple double in four straight games. Last night, he put up 49 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists against the hapless 76ers (who nonetheless stayed in the game for a long time thanks to Isaiah Canaan’s shooting). Westbrook is on a Biblical tear right now. In February, he AVERAGED 31.2 points, 10.3 assists, and 9.1 rebounds. In 12 games. Now he gets to go against Aaron Brooks and Kirk Hinrich, who aren’t big enough or fast enough respectively to pose much threat to him. Any realistic chance of winning is wrapped up in making sure guys like Dion Waiters, Anthony Morrow, or DJ Augustin don’t play as well as they have been lately. Also making sure literally anyone not named Nikola Mirotic hits a shot in the fourth quarter.

Key Matchup(s): The entire city of Chicago vs the Exploding Star that is Russell Westbrook.

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Flickr | Taylor McKnight

NO, BULLS! BAD! AM I GOING TO HAVE TO RUB YOUR NOSE IN THAT!

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Martin Luther King Jr had a dream. I feel confident that his dream was not watching two teams a combined 8-12 in their last ten games compete to prop up their rapidly fading dreams of first place in the Eastern Conference. Despite their recent swoons, these two teams have shown signs of regaining their ideal states as of late.

The Derrick Rose dream has been kept alive by his recent molten hot streak from deep, scoring 32 on 6-9 (nice) shooting from deep against Washington, 29 on 5-8 shooting from deep against Boston, and 23 on 4-10 shooting from deep against Atlanta. While it’s slightly concerning that all but three of his 20 point games this season have come with three or fewer attempts from deep, at least he’s actually hitting these shots. Eventually, Rose will feel confident enough in his body’s ability to take contact to actually start taking advantage of the lanes his shooting is opening up, but until then, all we can hope is that he keeps hitting them.

Meanwhile, the LeBron James dream got back on course after a two week layoff, with the Greatest Player Alive dropping 30+ points in each of his three games back after a near two week layoff. While the Cavaliers have fought their way back above the .500 mark, they’re still 6th in the conference. The good news is that their version of the big three (LeBron, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love) is playing excellently together. The bad news is that those three playing together is an increasingly rare occurence. Love might play tonight, however, and if he does, I would expect the Bulls to get roasted by him, as they have pretty much every opposing big they’ve faced in 2015.

Regardless of how this game goes, one of these two teams will likely win the Central Division and perhaps both with head into the first round of the playoffs as a top 4 seed. Whether or not they can compete with the dream-like Hawks is another matter entirely, and probably the main focus of these last four months or so of play.

Key Matchup(s): Jimmy Butler vs LeBron James. THE LEBRON STOPPER LOL!!!!one1oneeleven

Jimmy’s gotten back on track a little bit as of late, and will likely play 35-40 minutes matched up directly with the best player on this planet. So doing well would help, I think.

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Joakim Noah (1-5, 3 points, 10 rebounds) looked bad again, getting caught flat footed in the paint several times on open dunks for one of Washington’s bigs. Pau Gasol (5-12, 12 points, 13 rebounds) wasn’t too much better, specifically in the first quarter. Jimmy Butler (2-12, 10 points) and Kirk Hinrich (1-3, 3 points) both looked poor as well, leaving Derrick Rose (8-19, 19 points, 4 rebounds) alone to carry the burden offensively. Encouragingly, he was game for most of his playtime, with only a few ill-advised threes (stop me if you’ve heard that before) marring his performance.

Really, it was the bench that ever made this even something of a contest (the Bulls got within 5 at one point), led by Aaron Brooks (6-13, 16 points), Tony Snell (3-6, 9 points), E’Twuan Moore (3-4, 6 points) and, to a lesser extent, Taj Gibson (1-5, 2 points, 3 rebounds) and Nikola Mirotic (2-4, 6 points, 5 rebounds) holding down the fort for extended periods for long stretches of this game. Really, looking at this game, the Bulls never really had a shot. Turns out Mike Dunleavy is sort of important.

The Wizards were led by Marcin Gortat (10-16, 21 points, 13 rebounds), Bradley Beal (7-16, 17 points), John Wall (6-15, 16 points, 12 assists), Nene (7-11, 15 points, 11 rebounds), and former Bull Rasual Butler (5-8, 13 points), who absolutely slaughtered the Bulls off the catch in the second half.

While this is hardly a game to take too many positive from, in the end it was a good, playoff caliber opponent playing well at home on a night when the Bulls’ best players didn’t have it (and their nominal best finally did, again). Still, rough loss made rougher by those recent bad losses to Brooklyn and Utah. The Wizards played some great defense in this one.

Player(s) of the Game: Derrick Rose.

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No one seems to notice or care that Joakim Noah, defending First Team All-NBA Center, is playing nearly as poorly as Rose. During Wednesday’s loss to Utah, Noah allowed Rudy Gobert to do essentially whatever he wanted. While giving up rebounds and positioning to the basketball player that most closely resembles an Ent is understandable, that Noah has been such a non-factor of both sides of the ball this far past his offseason surgery does not bode well. In fact, with the emergence of Nikola Mirotic and the existence of Cameron Bairstow and Nazr Mohammed, one could argue that the Bulls might be better suited sitting Noah for a couple weeks to allow him to heal. Unless, of course, this is something that won’t heal that simply and this is just who Noah is at this point.

At the expense of sort of overlooking the Wizards, who are a very good and tough team with a bevy of role players, a rough and tumble frontcourt and one of the best point guards in the league, what this stretch of games against the top of the Eastern Conference will tell us most is if the Bulls are who they are now (a contender in the East but hardly a real danger) or if what they *could* be (the best Bulls team since 1998) is still in play.

Key Matchup(s): Derrick Rose vs John Wall

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