It felt like the first round of a heavyweight fight. It felt like we’ve been here before. It feels like we’ll be here again. It was only game 2 of the regular season, but it felt like a game in late May. If you got the chance to watch the Bulls game Friday night, you were treated to a preview of the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Bulls didn’t come out on top Friday night, but that’s OK. It never feels good to lose, but this wasn’t so bad. I like good regular season games, but we know it’s all about the playoffs. This was the first meeting of the Bulls and the new Cavs, but it definitely won’t be the last. How will we come out on top when it counts?
First things first, is our health. We went into round one without a key cog, Jimmy Butler. He sat out his second game of the year after injuring himself in the preseason. He’ll be back soon enough; no need to rush him. He IS a key piece though. We did find out on Friday that the Bulls and Butler did NOT come up with a contact agreement, and he will become a restricted free agent at the end of the year. You always wonder how the negotiations proceeded behind closed doors. That should be an interesting sidebar as the year goes on, but we know that for this year, he will be the starting 2 guard.
Another important piece of the puzzle is DRose; he already endured his first injury of the year, although this time it’s only a sprained ankle. It still sucks though. He came back after doing it, but guess it was decided to not push it. It is after all only the 2nd game of the season. If this were late May, he would have stood in there. After his 18 point first half, he was definitely missed down the stretch. So for the last 20 minutes of this tilt, we were without our starting backcourt. We’re going to need them to knock the Cavs out when it counts.
Second observation from Friday night is that the Cavs beat us at our own game. Rebounding is our bread and butter. The Cavs owned the offensive glass. Tristan Thompson had more offensive rebounds than the entire Bulls team. In fact, at one point, out of his 13 rebounds, 12 of them were on the offensive glass! That’s just too many second chance opportunities. I’m sure Thibs will be very clear in communicating this information to the Bulls; very clear that this cannot happen if we expect to be on top.
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Another observation is that the Bulls seemed to fall in love with the outside shot. Yeah, they shot a good percentage this game, and that actually kept us in it, but we need to take the ball to the rack. We need to get in the paint and score. We need to get to the line. This must be another improvement by the time we meet in May. We have to go out there and take it, not sit back and chuck it up.
There was a lot of good things on Friday night, like DRose feeling it. It’s been a while since we’ve all seen that, but he was… until the whole ankle thing. It was good to see KLove stuffed over and over, by Pau, Jo, and Taj. It was funny to see the same ol’ Lebron whining to the referees while DRose knocked down a trey. The depth of the Bulls was also on display again, although so was the Cavs. These may be the 2 deepest teams in the NBA along with San Antonio.
Yeah, there were a couple bad calls Friday night too. I’m no rules expert, but how can a charging foul be called when the defender jumps into the guy with the ball? The continuation call in the NBA is a sick joke at this point, and it helped the Cavs send this game to OT. Guess you just have to live with the calls, but you figure at home, a couple more would have went the Bulls way.
Only 80 more games to go until they really count, although you have to win enough games to get there. Thibs will make sure the Bulls don’t slack on that. Long way to go until May, and a lot of teams will look very different. Who will be hot at the right time? Who will gel and be playing together at the highest level? To me, it really looks like these 2 teams are on a crash course. So, we give you the first round Cleveland; it’s all about the last team standing. And it will take 4 of these wins to take us out. See you soon…
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