Bulls - Heat, Round 2
The Bulls had a disappointing end to a pretty good season last night by falling to the Nets and down to the fifth seed of the playoffs. Now the road to the finals starts with Miami, and then on to cities like Detroit and Cleveland; a far tougher scenario than they would have had if they simply won the game last night. No use crying over spilled milk, though, so let's look ahead.
I haven't written much about the Bulls this season, but I've been watchin. Oh yes, I've been watchin. What I've seen is a much more consistent team than the team that took the floor last April. Luol Deng is a rock. Night in, night out, 19 and 7. He's by far the most consistent of the "good" players on the Bulls. And the fact that he just turned 22 two days ago gets me pretty excited. In fact, the playoffs themselves get me excited. There's nothing better to spice up May and June than a good tight playoff series. And therein lies the problem. The Bulls haven't seen May or June since Jordan retired nine years ago.
But I have a feeling this year might be different. Miami just isn't the same team that beat the Bulls in last year's first round and ended up hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy in June. Yes, their mediocre record can largely be explained away by Wade and Shaq's respective injuries, but they didn't exactly light the world on fire when they both were in the lineup either. Shaq's old, and Wade is rusty. If Hinrich can contain Wade, and Wallace can prevent Shaq from having a flashback, I really think the Bulls will win this first series. In fact, I'm going to put it out there right now that Ben Wallace is the most important player on the court in this series. He wasn't here last year, and Tyson Chandler had an absolutely miserable opening round. Shaq played like it was 1999, and it was all over. So if Big Ben can lock down Shaq, Captain Kirk can shadow Wade, Gordon fires up a 30 spot two or three times, and Deng remains his consistently good self; I don't see how they not win in 6. Throw in a healthy, scrappy Nocioni and it smells like a lock to me. Am I just talkin crazy or what?