We made it. We were in the house. Didn’t quite prepare appropriately, meaning, I only had my “Last Dance” shirt, and my son only had his Bulls hat, but we were representing; they heard us, that’s for sure. Thankfully, the Bulls did give us plenty to cheer for on Friday night in Miami; unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. The Bulls were out.
Where did it go wrong? Well, for me, all year long, it starts with our #1 guy… or the guy that is supposed to be #1. Zach Lavine played his ass off on Wednesday night in Toronto; I was singing the praise of the guy I’ve been bashing most of the year. Well, that lasted all of one game. In another must win game against Miami, Zach pulled another disappearing act. He did have one of the most exciting plays of the game. When he broke out and dunked that ball against Buckets… we jumped out of our seats; yes, the Heat fans knew we were there. There was a spattering of Bulls fans in the house in South Beach to root on this most frustrating team. Other than that though… Zach was pretty quiet; didn’t even make 20 points. He didn’t make ONE three pointer!!! Unacceptable. I know it’s not all on one guy; I get it. Not only is there enough blame to pass around to the players, but up the chain to the coach, GM, and owner. Yet, when I look at the fact we’re paying $40M/year to Lavine… the fact that he’s supposed to be that guy… the fact that he’s not, it’s frustrating. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
To go hand in hand with Zach coming up short, is the fact the guy we traded away for him, came up big. Yes, it was a familiar face doing some damage down the stretch, leading the Heat to victory. I never wanted to trade Jimmy; I hated the trade when it happened. I still hate it today. Can’t go backwards, but man… ask me Zach or Jimmy, and my answer has never changed. It was on full display in this elimination game. Sucks, but it’s true.
One question I came away with after the Bulls loss, besides all the serious questions looking forward about this roster, is does Miami pump noise into their arena? I swear they do. I know there is no way all the Heat “fans” were that loud; it got loud in there. Sure, it was half empty until halftime, but it did get loud; I’m convinced, just like Dodger Stadium, that noise is pumped in. That should be illegal btw. Let the fans’ voices be heard; don’t artificially amp it up. I’m pretty confident that all that noise was NOT legit.
DD did what he could do; Vooch didn’t. Drummond was playing good, but then was taken out. Coby and Caruso made some big shots; Pat Bev was pretty non-existent. Where DO we go from here? We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that. Regardless of the end result of this game, being able to attend it, in person, in Miami, was an awesome, awesome thing. I’ll wear the loss; I have no problem with that. We had some friendly back and forth around our seats; we weren’t shy about cheering our Bulls on. Funny enough, we ran into Adam Amin after the game; really nice guy. Took a picture with my son, and talked about the game with both him and I. That was cool.
We’re Bulls fans to the end, always and forever. We live and die with them. On this night, it was a quick death. With a victory within our grasp mid-4th quarter, it was gone… just like that… poof. I have a lot more thoughts to share on this team and its future, but for now, this season, this game… has me burned out… I need a break. Until next year…
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