Bulls collapse to the undeterred Heat, lose series 4-1

Ah well, again, thanks for the season BaB. It’s been a great ride, from BlogaBron to Fuck Rondo to this end of the season thread. Two thumbs up for Bulls fans!

i dont think they can but paxson seems quite pissed about the boozer signing, lol.

so more people will see how stupid the officiating was.

the 2 fouls Dwade got on Drose is just bad
the boozer foul where he was 2 steps away from anthony is just comedy. Reminds me of the Camby foul few yrs ago where he was 5 feet away lol

People are acting like Miami dominated the Bulls. That’s not the case at all. This series was A LOT closer than 4-1, which when you think about it, should be embarrassing for a team with 3 Top 10 players on their team.

Miami benefited from a little luck, a few nice calls, and were able to overcome that slim margin between the teams just enough to take a 3-1 lead. That 3-1 lead is what allowed James and Wade to hit those shots in the fourth last night. I bet my house they miss those if it was 2-2, which it almost was.

My biggest frustration comes from Thibs not making adjustments in the fourth. The Afternoon Saloon guys were asking the other day, “Is Thibs going to keep banging his head against the wall and sending Dereck Rose 1 on 5 at the end of the game?” And the reporter’s answer was “Yes.” “Why? It hasn’t worked for 3 games in a row.” “Well what what you do?” the reporter asked. “That’s not my job, he said. That’s his job. If something’s not working, you change it.” And that’s exactly how I felt. It’s Thibs job to fucking fix the problem, to come up with something different. And he didn’t. And I think that’s why our season ended. Cause he didn’t adjust to their 4th quarter system (Lebron on Rose). I’m kind of baffled, actually, that Thibs isn’t getting more blame here.

I don’t know if Orlando wants to part with Howard or they’re going to stubbornly let him go without getting anything in return. But if the Bulls don’t get Howard and a shooter, I say we see a repeat of this next year.

the scouting report has always been make him go left and force him to make a jumpshot. Well he did always go left, and made the fckng jumpshots.

I wonder what the result would be if we actually made him go right and see if he is still quick enough to drive. Seeing him being guarded by Asik then settling for the 3pt shot makes me wonder if he can still ISO consistently in the half court

He was supposed to step up when Rose was struggling and he disappeared throughout the series. Who cares if he had a 20/10 twice in the series, he blew easy layups, got blocked numerous times by Joel Anthony, and Chris Bosh made him his bitch.

Scoring only 5 points in an elimination game shows me he has no desire to help the team out when they need him the most. Him and Korver should’ve really stayed in Utah where they were always getting the 1st or 2nd round exit.

Points: Heat 447 (89.4/g), Bulls 436 (87.2/g)

Free Throw Attempts: Heat 139 (27.8/g), Bulls 110 (22/g)

Fouls: Heat 100 (20/g), Bulls 118 (23.6/g)

Field Goals Made: Heat 156 (31.2/g), Bulls 162 (32.4/g)

Field Goal Attempts: Heat 344 (68.8/g), Bulls 414 (82.8/g)

I realize that I cherry-picked these stats, but it seems pretty clear to me. The Bulls made more FGs than the Heat in the series, and in 3 of the 5 individual games. But the Heat had far more FT attempts, though only had more in 3 of the 5 games.

The foul disparity was there, though not that great – only 1 per quarter in favor of the Heat which, on average, wouldn’t account for the huge FTA disparity.

However, there’s something here when you take FGAs into account. The Bulls had at least 10 more FGAs in EVERY game! The Heat’s maximum FGA in a game was 75 – the Bulls’ minimum FGA was 77. Therefore, the Heat parlayed a HUGE deficit in FGAs into a huge positive in FTAs. Why? Reputation, coaching, or ability? Or all three?

It’s all too easy to exclaim that the Bulls need a second real scorer because, well, they do. But I think more to the point is that they need a player other than Rose who can convert FGAs to FTAs like James, Wade, and Bosh. It’d be nice if the Bulls hit more of their shots. But it’d also be nice if the reason for missed shots was fouls, and getting to the FT line.

When I look at these numbers – with BOTH teams playing aggressive defense – it’s hard for me not to be jaded and think that the Heat got the benefit of more calls, or non-calls on defense, than the Bulls. Rose definitely should have been awarded more trips to the charity stripe. But the only Bulls to attempt 10 FTs in any game were Rose (1) and Boozer (1).

And whatever player(s) they acquire should not detract from what was, on the whole, world-class defense throughout the series.

His substitution patterns have hurt us (JL3) all season. Why run deng and rose into the ground after we clinched the east. Why is rose on the floor against atl at garbage time (re-aggravates sprained ankle) Against mia, why not rest rose at beginning of 4qt game 4? After seeing rose fail without said rest ,WHY play him the whole 4qt in game 5?! Why is boozer on the floor in the 4qt…EVER! why was kurt playing in game 5 but not game 4 when our big guys were exhausted in ot. Yeah I know its his first year & he will get better yada,yada,yada…but thibs lack of adjustments and playing time management costs us dearly. I don’t give a fuck what anyone says to the contrary.

No reason to try when you know the refs have already given the trophy to LeBron

The worst thing about this loss is how dramatic the response has been. For that reason, winning 5 and losing in 6 on the road would have been much better. It would have been broadly meaningless. You can’t draw strong inferences from a sample size of 1 (or 5).

This happened to the Celtics. They were basically there last year. Sure, there players were getting older, but they didn’t need to shake up things quite as dramatically as they did. If they could have found a way to keep Tony Allen and Perk, the gap between them and the heat similarly wouldn’t have been as large.

Similarly, I hope the Bulls don’t shake things up too much. The gap between them and the heat is not as significant as game 5 suggested. The heat are one injury away from disaster. And they aren’t getting younger.

Also, Rose haters tend to forget a number of important things: 1) It took Jordan 7 years and that came after three straight defeats to the pistons (including a 4-1 semi-final defeat in Jordan’s 4th year); 2) this is James’ 8th year in the league and his success comes on the heels of serious disappointment; and 3) post Shaq, Lakers were basically running the same kind of ineffective ISO with Kobe. They had to seriously discipline and reform Kobe to turn their offense into the machine it was.

So while there are certainly improvements they could make at the margins (korver should go), I don’t think we need serious reform. What we need is a more disciplined offense. This brilliant post is still instructive: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/18622/what-the-chicago-bulls-can-learn-from-the-utah-jazz

I’ve looked at the stats. Bulls didnt only win, they dominated every category except two. Free throws and fouls.

that was some awesome show of skills and poise he displayed last night (and throughout the series, but particularly last night). I think Henry Abbott’s article on Jordan vs. James does a good job of summing things up on how good LeDouche is, especially this brilliant paragraph:

Rings, based on so much luck, health and team, are a slow and sometimes incorrect way to determine which individual player plays best. Rings don’t pick the greats. Instead, they alleviate the risk of calling someone great. You can’t look dumb calling a champion a hero. But that doesn’t mean the best might not yet be a champion.

Link

I’m quite optimistic on the Bulls’ chance of improvement in the coming years. But I’m even more concerned about what kind of invincible monster that Miami squad can become now that they seem to have figured out how to play w/ each other and, god forbid, if they get better supporting players. And, of course, b/c LeDouche seems poised to separate himself from the rest of the pack even further. God help us all.

It would have been his craig ehlo signature moment. A clutch mvp dagger that would be replayed forever. Instead there is just pain. So much sad horrible pain. I hate sports!

Yeah I said it.

Let’s break up the team. Derrick Rose is overrated. The Bulls future is a shambles.

I mean, that’s what a completely objective person would think in looking at the results, right?

What other conclusions could you come to, considering that during the series:

• The Bulls made more FGs than the Heat, and dished out more assists
• The Bulls grabbed more rebounds than the Heat
• The Bulls scored more points in the paint than the Heat
• The Bulls had more fast-break points than the Heat
• The Bulls had fewer turnovers than the Heat

Yeah, let’s not overreact. It was complete domination, and Gar Paxdorf need to trade Rose for Deron Williams or CP3, gut the ballclub, and fire Thibs while they’re at it. It makes PERFECT sense.

Shit, in a 4-games-to-1 playoff series, the only places where a statistician could find Miami domination is in getting to the free throw line and making them when they got there.

Heat fan here; It was a really good series. The Bulls defense is great; never seen D Wade get shut down like that for most of game 3 and 4. You guys just need another scorer and you’re right there. You’ll have a chance for revenge next season….

The Heats had the Bulls PnR figured out from Game 2. Every time the Bulls tried to run it at the end of games, the Heat shut it down.

I’m not certain whether to attribute this to a lack of creativity, or a lack of personnel that can run anything different. The PnRs just made me cringe — usually a turnover, brick, or offensive foul.

for someone who can put the fucking ball in the fucking hoop.

It would be nice to trade Booz but I doubt they’d get much for him.
They can trade Noah because he the best trade value and Asik is there to replace him.(Unless they got Howard).
I used to love Noah but after this series I’m tired of him. It’s not because of what he said, it’s because he’s so inconsistent. We have a defensive center (Asik). We need someone who can score.

“Gee, we sucked, we won 62 games, we made it to the ECF for the first time in 13 years, we have the youngest MVP ever, our coach was named coach of the year..” Yeah we suck alright. We need to get off the trail of tears and realize that we had a great, great year. One could say we overachieved. Yes we played badly vs the Heat, but even playing badly we could have won every game, we were that close, even though the score shows otherwise. Glad I am not a Cubs fan. Can’t imagine what you guys go through every year!

Overall they defended the Heat better than any other team in the league could. They were aggressive on offense, they badly outrebounded the Heat, and they turned the ball over less. The Bulls even made more shots than the Heat, though scoring in crunchtime proved more difficult. The principal reason the Bulls lost this series was that they couldn’t get to the free throw line as often as the Heat, despite attacking the rim more. Miami’s players were more crafty at getting calls, and other than that the Bulls were as good if not better. They acquitted themselves well no matter what any instant reaction says.

Also, I’m surprised that so many people here are so down on Rose. He faced 3 above-averages defenses employing schemes entirely aimed at slowing him down, he battled an ankle injury, and his PER dropped less than a point, from 23.5 in the regular season to 22.6 in the postseason. That’s pretty impressive. Expectations for him have become so exceptionally high that I guess he was bound to disappoint if the Bulls didn’t win it all. His expectations for himself may be even higher, and I expect him to work hard in the offseason to get better. This is still a good time to be a Bulls fan. I just hope there’s a season next year.