The Bulls are clearly the underdog in this series. They don't think they should be. They'll be well-balanced...a chip on both shoulders. They say that the NBA is all about stars over team. The Bulls don't buy into this either. The time for talk is just about over. Game on.
I think it's really about match ups. (I've already unleashed my rant about styles making fights in the other thread, so I'll spare you here.) Mike Bibby v. Rose (wow, that's ugly.) Wade v. Bogans/Brewer (about as good as you're going to get on the defensive end) Lebron v. Deng (about as good as you're going to get on the defensive end) Heat's fast break v. Bulls' rebounding. The Bulls are about as well designed to beat the Heat as it is possible. I think they could be quite a bit worse, talent wise, and still come out on top.
Miami's choice is to put Wade on Rose, or rest him on the defensive end. I'm sure we'll see LeBron on him as well. The Heat play great team defense.
I wrote a whole lot more, but lost it when it didn't post. I wouldn't worry even if the bulls lose the first one tonight. As long as they get the second and one in Miami, they will get the series. The bulls have started slowly and finished strong each series. The Heat have done the opposite.
Well, my call is the Bulls start out strong, and get stronger. They haven't pushed that hard. They haven't really focused. They've just been getting warmed up. The Celtics were the target for the Heat. They'll buy the cunning linguist's arguments out there about how good they are, and we'll smoke 'em this first one. They'll come back hard, but they'll be knocked off balance, start to rely too much on individualistic play, and we'll have a laser-like focus to cut them up bit by bit, like the Black Knight in Holy Grail. I have a vision. [video=youtube;9RZ-hYPAMFQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RZ-hYPAMFQ[/video]
The things is, Miami can't have Wade or Lebron guard Rose for any extended period. If one of them get's in foul trouble the game is basically over for the Heat. They Heat need Wade and Lebron to have at least average games to win. And all of this a little bit besides the point. Rose doesn't struggle with strong wing defenders; he struggles with Dwight Howard and interior length. We've seen some of this in the playoffs from Roy Hibbard and Crazy T, who both had a relatively nice series, and Josh Smith who gave him some problems. You don't stop Rose with on the ball defense. You limit him with help from bigs.
You don't stop Rose, period. But he'll put up 10-27 if one guy can stay in front of him and others can pressure him. The guys who have guarded him so far haven't been in foul trouble. First Collison, then Teague...
Ah Denny, there you go again. If that 10-27 is actually 9-20 from 2 and 1-7 from 3 with 10 FTA, the bulls win easily.
Damn, I am going to co-sign. Bulls win the interior and the series. I can't believe how many of the writeups don't even mention Noah. I hope he is paying attention. p.s. Now Bulls, don't make me look like an ass in the next hour. p.p.s. From KC's twitter: Who is effecting who? Already.
