Game Two Recap: Bulls play nearly their best, the Cavs play their better.

the Factoies were too much for us?

it’s crazy

it’s still really disheartening that we played that well, yet still lost by 10 points. Hopefully we can still pull one or two games out, but I have my doubts. As was said above this series can’t hurt with all the attention that Noah and Rose have been getting. This offseason is our playoffs anyway.

Derrick can’t even get a blow. Law at least got to the free throw line.

from D-Rose. Splash.

why VDN went small the entire 4th quarter. It was 77-77 at the end of three…as soon as we went small to start the 4th, the lead went to 5 and we could never climb back in it. Obviously lebron hit some crazy shots to help them secure that lead, but I just don’t get the reasoning. Taj was playing pretty decent at the time. Both Kirk and Flip had horrible second halfs…Kirk had a horrible overall game. I would’ve liked to make them match us instead of us trying to match them.

why did we kept Kirk on the team again?

In the postgame, Lebron said they were daring him to shoot, so he did over and over again….you could see him talking to the bench in the 3rd and 4th quarters…

Its just dumb to call out a player from the bench…

bulls keep it much closer… coincidence? i think not!

fuck pargo!

But Sam mentioned that Lu did more slashing to help him get more scoring opportunities. I just hope Lu and Derrick didn’t come up with it on their own with (no forsight from Vinny). I’d like to give Vinny more credit if it was deserved, but I think Lu can be a consistent offensive contributor in this series if he continues to do that even if he doesn’t match Lebron’s output.

Game 3 should be interesting. Checking the box scores….the Cavs shot incredibly well…..including at the FT line. If the Bulls can continue to keep everyone else (not named Lebron) in check as they appeared to do for the most part last night, they may have a good shot at a win in game 3.

But we executed almost perfectly and despite the fact that Lebron was ridiculously amazing with his 16 for 23 and seemingly hitting every big jumper in the game well defended the entire game, just ridiculous), I thought Luol Deng quietly rebounded from a sluggish first quarter to be our best player last game (though less heralded than JoNo—for good measure).

if we can continue to see that aggressive Deng (he actually looked and played angry, and well looked fantastic from it) then who knows. We can’t expect to see Moon go 4 from 5 from 3 pt land again especially in Chicago…..

Rose had a quieter fourth but was effective all night.

Noah was fantastic, hustle, doing everything. I LOVED the over the back being guarded/boxed out both by Miller and Noah on the same play and how Shaq shoved them and grabbed the board—showing he’s still got superhuman strength, and when the foul was called on Shaq, Noah very loudly yelled Thank you.

That was awesome.

But man LBJ is nipping on MJ right now, I know that’s blasphemy, but he has perfected that little block of his, that makes any other D shortcomings a total wash, he’s got better vision that MJ, and while not typically the jump shooter MJ is, man when he has it falling, he’s absolutely unbelievable.

I lost my jaw on the couch…..several times yesterday.

I sure hope he isn’t on the ’roids….cuz what a player. Makes you almost want to like him even with the stupid dancing antics….but I hate him (though will love him immediately if he came to Chicago :).

…Rajon Rondo.

Well-above average defender (I’d say great). Can’t shoot worth a lick. Can do everything else on offense well. Doesn’t have the skills to carry a team by himself, but really shines when he has better players around him.

Just a thought.

1. Jamario Moon at both ends
2. The Bulls cheating help defense trying to clog the paint
3. Failing to punish the Cavs when Lebron rests(Bulls -4 when Lebron was out)

That’s it really. Lebron on fire doesn’t make defeating the Cavs any more difficult than usual. I really liked how the Bulls just played through that. They weren’t hanging heads or throwing up their arms. They took the punches and punched right back.

What really hurt our performance, and especially late in the game, was when Lebron was handling the ball and the other 4 Bulls were cheating their way off their man to clog the paint. The Cavs exploited this to perfection with player rotation between Williams and Moon, and Jamison and West. Caught looking at Lebron, the rotation would screen the Bull from his primary assignment so the passing rotation would deny the route to recovery to force a dribble. No dribble, ergo no turnover opportunity.

When Lebron rests every possession should attack the rim. Every defensive possession should force dribble penetration. You want to get into transition against the Cavs bench. They don’t have any defenders that can recover and limit transition the way Lebron can. We give the Cavs +4 without Lebron when they should be at least -4 to constitute an 8 point shift that would have been useful down the stretch. The Cavs playing from behind are a different team then playing even or with the lead.

The goal was to steal one in Cleveland, but the new goal is to take two in Chicago. Lets go get it.

This is as good or better, both in style and in the mixture of key themes, then anything from the mainstream. Nice job!

Ya..he played good ..for a whinny fuck. BUT HE SO WEAK! If he had any game left in him, he would have made that shot in the 4th that would have made us gain monentum…same as Rose, he balled till the end and looked completely loss for a minute and dribble like a damn fool (no pants on the ground). Noah kept us in…all game. Love the post yfbb, but i gotta disagree on Deng. Matter of fact, any deng fan should feel ashamed right now

of the “Paul Pierce ceremonial wheelchair” reference.

I actually agree with you that the Bulls played about as well as they can play. I was very proud of the way they kept battling and never backed down. I also want to give VDN some credit for actually playing JJ on Lebron and not playing Pargo at all. That said, this game just illustrates how much better the Cavs are as a team and the inevitability of a short series. I’m still hoping to at least avoid a sweep. All of this national attention, I believe, can only help for the summer (which is at that matters at this point) as it perpetuates the ‘team on the rise’ view of us.

… with the way the Bulls played in Game 2. Sure LeBron had a dynamite game (which is to be expected…)- but it was those 3’s by Jamario Moon that killed us in the end. I think this game also made me miss the hell out of Ben Gordon, too! We sure could’ve used those clutch 3’s to answer back when Moon hit his, as a way to “punch ’em right back in the mouth”, and test his confidence to see if he really WAS that hot, so to speak. Bottomline, the lack of perimeter ‘D’ on those 3’s hurt us- BUT our guys showed me that they really have what it takes to win. Am i saying that we can beat the Cavs? Sure we can, but we’d have to play just a little better than we did on Monday. With sustained defensive stops, and continued continuity on the offensive end. I know we’ll get one at home, maybe TWO. We’ll soon see. GO BULLS!

Game Two Recap: Bulls play nearly their best, Lebron play his better