The Las Vegas Hilton has priced the Heat at -190, while the MGM Race and Sports and Book has them at -185. The Hilton has the Bulls at +170 to win the series. Both books have the Bulls favored to win the opener by 1½ points. The Heat are 5-6 at the MGM, and 5-4 at the Hilton, to win the NBA championship. The Bulls are 2-1 and 5-2, respectively. Read more: http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/nba/news/story?id=6542119
Love it. I'd like someone to answer this question for me. What about the Heat team has changed that makes them the odds-on favorites? Lebron and Wade were incredibly great players. Still are. Bosh was very, very good. Still is. The rest of their players were kinda spotty. Still are. Nothing has changed as far as I can tell. The Heat had the most star-power coming into the season and they still have the most. The national media would have us believe that the Heat have taken their game to some higher level in the playoffs. Have they? Not from what I've seen. The Heat are Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and a collection of role-players of varying abilities. Each game that the Bulls played them was tough. There's no reason to believe that the games played in this series will be anything other than tough. The part that I don't get is why nearly every national NBA expert picks the Heat. I remember a sig that some RealGM poster had after the Bulls swept the Heat in the '06-'07 first round showing the national "experts" (all but one) picking the Heat to win the series. The experts aren't always right.
Its not like the Bulls have been humming along at 100%. Rose has been dealing with his ankle. Boozer his turf toe. Games against the Pacers and Hawks were tougher than expected slogs at times. The Bulls are the number 1 seed, but they have not really looked like the best team in the NBA. Meanwhile, the Heat seem to be coasting along and playing together well. They just beat a tough team in the Celtics in 5. They have 2 of the top 10 players in the league and one of the top 25 as well. And then you have NBA officiating. Wade and Lebron will get to the line whenever they want. My gut tells me the Heat will probably win. I know the Bulls can win if they are playing great D, Boozer contributes like a star and the team is hitting from outside. We just have not seen it that much in these playoffs. In fact, what I describe above has been a rarity in these playoffs. And if they don't play their best ball against the Heat, they are likely not going to eek out games like they did against the Hawks and Pacers. The Heat are the "safe" pick, but I know the Bulls can do it if everything is clicking. I don't think its that crazy for someone to pick the Heat though.
k4e, I respect your analysis, but I think you overstate what the Bulls need to do to win, and how bad the Bulls have looked. Now, I'm projecting here, but I think that the Bulls, like me, knew in their heart of hearts that these first two series didn't require their best shot. They've been getting their feet under them, figuring out what they need to do in the grind of a playoff series. And what they've learned is pretty hopeful, actually. The bench mob is engaged and primed for action. Carlos worked through his injury and is getting his timing back. Luol has grown as an emotional leader. Jo is not quite there offensively, but I think that's going to come in this series, because our front court is our huge advantage over Miami. I'm not saying its going to be easy. It wasn't easy in the season. But I think it's going to be a bit easier than people imagine, given the slogfests we've seen the first two rounds. Bulls in 6. Bulls win the first game by 10.
I hear everything you're saying but there's something weird when everyone picks against the team with the better record and home court advantage, especially after the Bulls went beat the Heat in all three games during the regular season. This is the same type of thing we saw preseason when VanGundy picked the Heat to win seventy games. The Bulls remain a bad matchup for the Heat, and didn't exactly kill it against the Celtics either -- I didn't believe in the Cs before the lost Rondo.
I would really like to see Joakim take Lebron on defense with Taj being his reo Deng is also the guy to take Wade after Bogans goes him early but I would like to see Brewer play minutes on Wade A strategy such as this may leave us exposed at the back but we could limit the damage with Boozer on Anthony and Ilgauskas and have Omer / Taj covering Bosh Defense Boozer Asik/Taj Noah/Taj Deng/Brewer Rose
Here's another headline from ESPN: That's not how basketball works. There's some strange shit going down with how people are characterizing the series and it's so pervasive that everyone is getting caught up in it. Bulls in 5.
Memphis was up 2-1, then found themselves down 3-2. They adjusted by putting Mayo in the starting lineup and won convincingly. And yeah, 3 is better than 1, but the 3 are going to have to play near 48 minutes to keep up.
What these clowns don't recognize is that : 1. The Bulls were the leagues best defense during the regular season 2. The last two games against the Hawks we have kicked into another defensive gear that you could reasonably say is "championship calibre" defense 3. I love ( and loathe ) that Luol Deng is being ignored as a significant factor. How Lu was not given a nod on 2nd team defense ( and I reckon he deserved 1st team honors ) is beyond me. Just goes to prove how political and repetitional all this stuff is. Any which way you slice it , Lu has has been one of the best wing defenders in the league this season and his defense in the last couple of games has gone to another place. 4. We may not have the big swinging dick 2nd star , in name , but beyond Noah was all-star worthy before going down and Deng was our 1st team defense worthy guy that was / is the heart of this team's defensive identity. And then you take into account the smart fits like Brewer, Korver, Asik, Thomas , Gibson, Watson and even Bogans and this is a finely balanced team that knows it's business of how it works and fits. We have size, speed and length in our depth that can play full court or half court , defensively and offensively even though we're not a great offensive team. The reason why the Heat can't win and won't win is because they have no true talent in their depth and they have absolutely nothing upfront. Go big, control the boards and slow it down so we can stick a fork in their ass ASAP. They can take their talents home for the summer with that just pumped he neighbors cat look on their face for all I care
