If you’re currently experiencing an intense and overwhelming feeling of stunned amazement at what they Bulls are doing in these playoffs, don’t be alarmed.

It indicates only that you are still sane.

You know the drill by now. The Bulls are a depleted team. No Derrick Rose. Kirk Hinrich is day-to-day with a bum calf. Luol Deng had a spinal tap last week and tweeted a picture from his hospital bed last night. Joakim Noah (plantar faciitis) and Taj Gibson (knee) are playing through injuries. Gibson and Nate Robinson recently battled the flu.

All that and two days after winning a do-or-die Game 7 on the road, the Bulls had to face the defending (and presumed future) champs in Miami.

Mission impossible, right?

Never impossible. Not with this group. Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau ripped the page with the word “quit” right out of the team dictionary, burned it, and buried the ashes.

At times, Thibodeau’s mantra of “more than enough to win” has seemed laughable in the face of the many injuries and misfortunes that have plagued the Bulls this season. But it instilled a sense of commitment and responsibility in every player on this team, from the front of the bench all the way to the end of it.

Take Nate Robinson.

The Bulls signed Robinson last summer as a last-minute afterthought. He was supposed to be a part-time player at best. With Rose and Hinrich both out, Robinson started at point guard, playing 40 minutes and 29 seconds. Little Nate finished with game-highs in points (27) and assists (9). He had more free throw attempts (10) than LeBron James and Dwyane Wade combined (9). According to ESPN Stats and Information, Robinson became the fourth Bulls player in the past 25 seasons to have at least 25 points and 9 dimes in a playoff game, joining Michael Jordan, Derrick Rose, and Scottie Pippen.

Not bad company. Especially considering Robinson is doing it for a little over $800,000 this season.

But wait, there’s more. Robinson scored or assisted on 25 of Chicago’s 35 fourth quarter points…and he scored 7 in the team’s 10-0 run to close the game. His clutch performance made him the only player in the last 15 seasons with at least 11 points and 6 assists in the fourth quarter of a playoff game. All this despite getting 10 stitches mid-game after busting his lip in a loose ball collision.

LeBron who?

Said Thibodeau: “He got knocked around a little bit, couple stitches, it’s all good. Get out there and get it done. … He’s about as confident as they come, and that’s the thing that makes him good. If he misses a shot, he has a very short memory. He always thinks he’s hot, never afraid, and will step up in a big situation. He has the courage to take and make.”

Now take Jimmy Butler.

Forget Robert Downey Jr. Butler is Iron Man. Incredibly enough, the second year man out of Marquette has played the full 48 minutes for three straight games, making him only the fourth player since the NBA-ABA merger to go the limit in back-to-back-to-back playoff games (per Elias Sports Bureau). In his previous two games, he spent those long minutes guarding Deron Williams and Joe Johnson. Last night he guarded LeBron and D-Wade all night. While contributing 21 points (on only 13 shots) and a game-high 14 rebounds.

Said Butler: “It’s all about being tough. We’re always going to be the underdogs. We take pride in that. Everybody can overlook us, but we feel like we’re good enough to hang with a lot of these teams. I talked to Lu before the game. He was like, ‘Take up his space, make everything tough for him, challenge every shot.’ Of course, no layups. I feel I don’t want to give layups to anybody, make them earn it from the stripe. Lu’s going to rest up and we want him back. But until (then) I guess I’ll be stuck guarding him.”

As Huey Lewis might tell Butler: The Bulls and their fans are happy to be stuck with you.

Said Noah: “I’m really proud of him. [He’s a] young player, but he played huge against the best. He’s like a brother and to see him shine the way he’s been shining in these playoffs … I knew he was ready but the sky’s the limit for that kid.”

Added Gibson: “He’s really talented and he goes out there and does the job, doesn’t talk back, just grits it out each and every night and he’s getting better each game I think. … He understands his role, he understands what this team needs. Whenever we’re down we can always count on Jimmy. Without Lu in there Jimmy just stepped up big and we just helped him. Whenever a guy needs help, we just help each other out.”

Helping each other out. That’s what this team does.

Whether it’s Noah with a double-double (13 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 blocked shot) and great interior defense, or Marco Belinelli hitting the boards (7 rebounds) to make up for his poor shooting (3-for-10) or Gibson giving the team a big lift off the bench (12 points, 4 rebounds, 1 blocked shot, +9).

And there there was the defense.

In the first quarter, Miami was held to only 15 points on 5-for-19 shooting. They improved only marginally in the second quarter (8-for-20). The Heat did shoot 50 percent (10-for-20) in the third quarter, but they were only 8-for-19 in the fourth, including 0-for-5 in the final two minutes.

For the game, Miami shot a miserable 39.7 percent, including 29.2 percent from three-point range.

Most importantly, the Heat converted only 59 percent of their shots at the rim, per Hoopdata. Mind you, Miami led the league in field goal percentage at the rim during the regular season at 71.5 percent.

The Bulls played great individual and team defense, but much of the credit goes to Noah and Gibson, who both protect the paint and can switch out on perimeter players better than most big men in the league. Just ask Ray Allen and Shane Battier, who combined to go 4-for-14 from the field and only 3-for-11 from downtown.

Miami scored at a rate of 98.7 points per 100 possessions (per Basketball-Reference) after leading the league in Offensive Efficiency (110.3 points per 100 possessions) during the regular season.

Maybe the Heat players were simply rusty after a long layoff. They did miss several open shots in the early going. But the Bulls also dominated the glass, outrebounding the Heat 46-32, with a 26.5% to 15.9% advantage in Offensive Rebounding Percentage (per Basketball-Reference). In fact, Butler (14 boards) and Noah (11 rebounds) both outrebounded Chris Bosh (6 rebounds), Udonis Haslem (3 rebounds) and Chris Anderson (1 rebound) by themselves. Rebounding is about effort. And Chicago simply fought harder than Miami in this game.

Said Robinson: “I’ve played on some tough teams, but this one is a little different. There’s something special about this group. For me, it feels like we’ve been playing together 10 years. We love to play for each other, regardless. A couple of times in the game me and Jimmy had miscommunications and he told me on a switch to make sure to go under, little things like that. You make adjustments and you don’t need the coach to tell you. He’s younger than me and is telling me that. He’s helping me out. That’s how it is with each guy on the team. It makes it easier to go out and play, and it’s fun. I love the energy and passion. Teammates joke with me and it gives me confidence to go out and play with energy. I love the energy and passion. This is probably the best season I’ve had with this group of guys. God is good. I’m blessed and thankful to be on this team.”

And Chicago fans are blessed and thankful to be rooting for this team.

Extras:
Recap, Box Score, Advanced Box Score, Play-by-Play, Shot Chart.

The post Game 1 Recap: Bulls prove to be tougher than the Heat appeared first on Bulls By The Horns.

Just ask the Bulls. They defeated the Miami Heat by 21 points in Game 1 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals and then went on to lose the next four games. Whether a team loses by one point or one hundred, it’s still only one loss.

That said, this particular loss was pretty discouraging.

The Bulls got a big offensive game out of Carlos Boozer (25 points, 12-for-20, 8 rebounds, 4 assists) and Nate Robinson (17 points, 8-for-12, 1 assist) provided some scoring punch off the bench.

Unfortunately, too many other Bulls came up shooting blanks.

Joakim Noah — who had been listed as doubtful for Game 1 and possibly even iffy for the entire series — hobbled out for the starting tip. But his unexpected appearance wasn’t exactly the second coming of Willis Reed. Noah played 13:27 ineffective minutes, finishing with 4 points on 2-for-6 shooting and 5 rebounds. He looked rusty. He looked hurt. And his performance raised the inevitable question: should he be playing at all?

Probably not…although Noah says he expects to play in Game 2.

Said Buls coach Tom Thibodeau: “The thing is he hasn’t practiced so he’s going to be rusty, but I’d rather have him out there. Whatever he can give us is a plus. We didn’t play well. It wasn’t Jo, it was our team. So he’s a big plus for our team, so we’d like to have him out there. We’ve got to play better. Everyone has to play better.”

That “everybody” certainly includes poor Luol Deng (6 points, 3-for-11, 3 assists, 2 rebounds), who looked and played like he’d aged in dog years during the regular season. Maybe that’s the price to be paid for leading the league in minutes per game for two seasons in a row. And Gerald Wallace — who had a terrible season by his standards and even admitted recently that “my confidence is totally gone” — thoroughly outplayed Deng by scoring 14 points on 5-for-7 shooting.

Said Deng: “He’s a good player. He had a good night tonight, but it’s one of those things. I play hard, I battle, so I’m just looking at it as I had a bad game tonight. We lost one, but we’ll bounce back next game.”

Let’s hope so.

Adding to Chicago’s misery was the fact that Kirk Hinrich was held without a field goal and finished with the team’s worst plus-minus score (-19) in the 28 minutes he played before leaving the game with a leg injury. And as it turns out, his performance was historically bad.

From ESPN Stats and Information:

Kirk Hinrich had 2 points and 2 assists in 28 minutes. His 4 combined points and assists are the fewest by any Bulls starting point guard that played at least 25 minutes in an NBA playoff game in the last 15 seasons. Coincidentally, the next 2 players on this list are Kirk Hinrich as well. It’s safe to say the Bulls need Derrick Rose back.

Well, of course the Bulls need Rose back, but unfortunately Thibodeau has all but ruled out any possibility that may happen: “He’s most likely out but you never know. The playoffs are stretched out, too, so you have to factor that in. So who knows another week from now where he is? You always want to leave that possibility open.”

Nope. Superman won’t be flying to the rescue. Not this season anyway.

Of course, it’s hard to imagine how Rose’s return could revive a previously rock-solid defense that got absolutely blistered. The Nets shot 55.8 percent from the field, scored 56 points in the paint and committed only 8 turnovers. And if all that doesn’t flabber your gast, then this will: Brooklyn scored at the mind-boggling rate of 125 points per 100 possessions (per Basketball-Reference).

And here’s how truly awful Chicago’s interior defense was: the Nets were 20-for-24 (83.4 percent) at the rim and 8-for-12 (66.7 percent) from 3-9 feet. Basically, if they got anywhere close to the basket, they scored.

With ease.

Thanks to a miserable 7-for-23 shooting effort and a 9-2 Brooklyn run to end the first quarter, the Bulls were already behind 25-14 heading into the second. And that’s when the hammer really came down: Brooklyn shot 16-for-20 during the second quarter and went into halftime with a 60-35 lead.

Believe it or not, the Bulls actually shot really well in the third and fourth quarters — 11-for-19 and 10-for-16 respectively — and even outscored Brooklyn 27-17 over the final 12 minutes. Unfortunately, the game had been decided long before that.

Said Thibodeau: “It was the end of the first [quarter] and they hit us with a haymaker, got us back on our heels. So end of the first, second quarter, poor defense, poor intensity, poor energy on offense. You can’t win like that.”

Added Noah: “We played so poorly. We didn’t play well offensively. We didn’t execute; playoffs is all about executing. We didn’t execute the defensive game plan, we didn’t execute the offensive game plan. We’ll watch film and we’ll definitely come out with a better effort on Monday.”

Noah is probably right. That’s been this team’s modus operandi during the Tom Thibodeau era. They rarely drop two games in a row and they almost always have a big bounce back after a loss.

And let’s face it, the Nets will almost certainly regress to the mean. Sure, Deron Williams (22 points, 9-for-15, 7 assists) and Brook Lopez (22 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists) will probably get theirs, but will Wallace have another efficient game? Will Joe Johnson (16 points, 7-for-13, 4 assists)? Or how about Andray Blatche (12 points, 6-for-11, 3 rebounds) and C.J. Watson (14 points, 6-for-8, 1 assist)?

It’s also a safe bet that — after watching film and getting an earful from Thibodeau — Chicago’s interior defense won’t be nearly as passive as it was last night.

That said, there are still some big questions. K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune reports that Hinrich will likely play in Game 2. And Noah said “Hell yeah, I’ll be out there” when asked if he would be available on Monday. But there’s no telling how effective either man will be. And they are absolutely critical if the Bulls have any hope of slowing Williams and defending Brooklyn’s forays into the paint.

But this is the playoffs. Anything can happen. And we all know these Bulls won’t give up.

Extras:
Recap, Box Score, Advanced Box Score, Play-by-Play, Shot Chart.

The post First Round Game 1 Recap: A humbling defeat appeared first on Bulls By The Horns.

Too much.

The Cavaliers had too much. Too much talent. Too much size. Too much LeBron James. And the Bulls, on the other hand, didn’t have enough.

The final score looks somewhat respectable. The fact that Chicago whittled a 22-point third quarter deficit (68-46) down to only seven (82-75) with 5:35 left in the fourth seems a little hopeful. But the reality is, the Cavs controlled the game and did pretty much whatever they wanted to do whenever they wanted to do it.

Just ask Joakim Noah, who was taken to playoff school by Shaq:

Not a bad for a 38-year-old who hasn’t seen a single second of NBA action since February 25.

Shaq — who finished with 12 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks in 25 minutes — said: “That’s the patented move I’ve been doing for years. That’s the ‘Diesel Truck with No Brakes.’ When I get into that mood people get out of the way because they know I’m in the cab and I don’t have any brakes.”

Replied Noah: I kind of knew he was going to do it at first, so I tried to take it away. Then he waited and waited until a good time. He just knows how to use that 350 pounds.”

No kidding.

Cleveland won the battle of the boards (50-38, including 13 offensive rebounds), the battle of the paint (42-36) and the battle of the stars, as LeBron (24 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 blocks) played better than Derrick Rose (28 points, 7 rebounds, 10 assists).

Rose had an…interesting game. According to ESPN Stats and Information, Rose became the first Bulls player with 25/5/10 in the playoffs since Michael Jordan did it on June 2, 1993. That’s pretty sweet. What’s sour is that it took Derrick 28 field goal attempts to reach his game-high point total.  And that his co-game-high assist total was accompanied by a career playoff worst 7 turnovers.

This after he had 7 total turnovers in the three games he played against Cleveland this season.

In the end, what it came down to was this: The Cavaliers were a game-best +19 with James on the floor, while the Bulls were a game-worst -14 with Rose in the game.

I’m not trying to say that plus-minus scores are the ulimate measure of a player’s success. But neither are points, rebounds and assists. And the reality is, the Cavs were at their nearly unstoppable best when LeBron was running the show. Fortunately for the Bulls, Rose isn’t about to give up…no matter what the numbers say.

Said Rose: “It’s going to be a fun series. This is something I live for. I think about it every day, every minute of the day, playing against the best team in the NBA, one of the best players in the NBA. I can say I’m blessed to even be here, and it’s a dream come true. I’m loving that we’re playing against him.”

I’m not sure Luol Deng feels the same way.

However, I’m glad Derrick is maintaining an upbeat attitude. Part of carrying your team is leading by example, both physically and mentally. Rose is trying to do that.

Will it matter this year? It seems unlikely. Cleveland has so much talent. What’s more intimidating is the amount of motivation they have to use that talent.

Make no mistake, things got a little chippy in Game 1. Noah and Anderson Varejao were getting rough with each other. LeBron mixed it up with Brad Miller and exchanged words with Deng. And of course Miller ended up with a bloody face courtesy of a Shaq elbow.

Said Brad: “Just taking an elbow to the damn chin and bleeding. My foul. … It’s not the first one I’ve gotten from him. He’s still Shaq, but I tell all these guys all the time, you should have seen what he was like a few years ago. Every possession underneath, it was bang, bang.”

As K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune observed, in the face of Cleveland’s physical play, the Bulls need to pick up their level of “nastiness.”

Rose agreed: “Definitely. We have to be totally opposite from last game. We weren’t aggressive on the defensive end. We have to have some type of swagger or nastiness about ourselves. We have to come out and start hitting people first — no ‘and ones’ and things like that.”

The Bulls certainly can’t out-talent the Cavaliers. But who knows? Maybe they can outfight them…at least for a game or two.

Noah on Cleveland:
From the Associated Press: “I don’t know about Cleveland, man, there’s nothing going on,” Noah said when asked how he might spend the remainder of a chilly, cloudy day downtown. “It’s bad.”

Bonus Stats:
Here’s a fun little tidbit from ESPN Stats and Information: “The Bulls were one of six teams to hold LeBron James to under 26 points per game in the regular season. One reason for LeBron’s low scoring output is the Bulls’ ability to defend him in isolation situations. LeBron was one of the league’s best isolation players in the regular season, running 661 isolation plays (2nd-most in the NBA) and averaging 0.97 points per play (11th highest in the NBA this season, minimum 150 plays). Despite LeBron’s success, he struggled against the Bulls this season, shooting 8-23 on isolations in three games. This did not improve [in Game 1].”

For the record, in Game 1, ‘Bron went 1-for-7 and committed a turnover on isos.

Extras:
Recap, Box Score, Advanced Box Score, Play-By-Play, Shot Chart, Photos

The post Game 1: Cavaliers 96, Bulls 83 appeared first on Bulls By The Horns.