Seeing Red

The Chicago Bulls finished off their second West Coast trip this year with a win over the Nash-less Phoenix Suns.  While my enthusiasm is tempered since Steve Nash and Boris Diaw were both out due to injury, I'm going to give more credit to Bulls than everyone else seems to.  All I've really read is how the Suns were so short handed and then I see picture like this of Leandro Barbosa crying in pain as if the Suns lost him too.  CRAP.  He played the whole game and scored a ton of points.  It probably wasn't his shoulder...he was just upset the Bulls were kicking his ass.

It's not like Chicago was healthy or even rested.  Playing without Nocioni, the Bulls played the last game of a brutal west coast swing and the third game in 4 nights.  The Bulls could have mailed it in, but didn't.  They played hard and deserved to win. 

There were times, however, when I thought the Bulls would lose their grip on this one.  The Suns kept finding stretches to put it together which corresponded to the stretches the Bulls sleep walk through.  This is nothing new.  They do this all the time.  It's a problem and Skiles has been trying to address and perhaps he has.  I sensed something, especially in the third quarter, when the Suns came back to take the lead.  The Bulls had committed a ton of turnovers and made a ton of bonehead errors.  I thought the Bulls would let another one drop.  They looked like they were sleepwalking.  SNAP!  All of a sudden, they seemed to wake up.  They protected the ball, recaptured the tempo, took good shots, and played great defense.  If the Bulls can put it together like this, every night, and learn to do without Nocioni, then we might have something here especially when he's back. 

While this last swing through the West was still a losing effort, maybe some good will have come of it if the Bull finally learned how to put it together and win.