The Bulls finally looked like a legit professional team last night against the Suns, can they carry over that vibe into tonight's game against Cleveland? Lebron and the Cavaliers after beating the Bulls on their home turf travel to Chicago to face our Bulls. Can we return the favor and destroy Cleveland on our home grounds? Yes we can. But will we? To stand a chance at winning we will have to keep Lebron away from the hole etc etc etc...I'm not going to repeat the strategy and the necessaries to win this game. Tune in at NBA league pass broadband or perhaps we can get a link in here Cheers for the Bulls to have a great game and keep up the vibe
Second the good vibe. The Bulls looked good against two good teams in a row (I thought they played ok against the Cavs the first time around). Sounds like we're going to be down Hinrich, but if we can get good efforts out of Ben, Lou and our kids again, I think we can pull it off.
This game sees the 4-2 Cleveland Cavaliers take on the 3-3 Chicago Bulls at the United Center. Cleveland Cavaliers C Zydrunas Ilgauskas PF Ben Wallace SF LeBron James SG Delonte West PG Mo Williams Key Bench Players: Daniel Gibson, Anderson Varejao, Wally Szczerbiak @ C Drew Gooden PF Tyrus Thomas SF Luol Deng SG Thabo Sefolosha PG Derrick Rose Key Bench Players: Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Joakim Noah, Andres Nocioni Chicago Bulls Cavaliers' Keys to Victory Rebound hard - the Cavs had a really poor rebounding night last night against the Pacers, getting outrebounded 44-30. It will be important to rebound (excuse the pun) from that shabby performance to really make an impact on the glass tonight. They made what should have been a relatively easy game last night into a difficult one because they did not rebound the ball well. If they do this again tonight against a Bulls team which is 3-0 at home, they probably won't win. Keep LeBron going - LeBron finally hit a three point shot last night, but he is still just 1-19 from downtown for the season. If he can maintain the aggressive aspect of his game, but also hit his jumpshots, he could be really devastating tonight against a Chicago team that really had no answer for him on Wednesday, as he scored Play tight defence - the Cavs forgot about their defence for the first quarter of last night's game, and they could have lost as a result of that. The Bulls are a better team than the Pacers, so if they play defence like the beginning of last night, they might lose the game before it really gets going. Bulls' Keys to Victory Take advantages of Cavs' lapses - in each of the past few games, there have been slight lapses of the Cavs, especially on defence, especially in the third quarter. The Bulls will need to fully exploit these lapses tonight if they are to beat a Cavs team which has, at times, looked very strong. LeBron James - it's difficult to say how the Bulls should treat LeBron tonight. He only shot 4-7 from the line against the Pacers, but did manage 15-16 against the Bulls on Wednesday. They might want to test him out by fouling him a lot in the opening quarter, to see how he reacts to the crowd. Other than that, it is difficult to say, but I think the Bulls will be satisfied if they can limit him to 25 points tonight. Shhot better from the floor - when the two teams met on Wednesday, the Bulls only averaged 39.2% from the floor. Against a team like the Cavaliers, this simply won't cut it and, unless you play elite defence which the Bulls cannot, you are almost certain to lose when shooting at that level. If they can boost this to 45-50%, they will put themselves in a very strong position to potentially make it their fourth straight win at home. Prediction The Cavs and Bulls have split their 23 games since 2003 13-10 in favour of the Cavs. LeBron has scored 30 or more points in 11 of his past 13 games (and one of those two was a 29 point game) against the Bulls, and averages 29.8 points, 6 rebounds and 6.1 assists. If he can pull out another 41 point performance as he did Wednesday, I can't see the Cavs losing. In fact, even if he hovers around 30, provided he gets a good number of assists, I still can't see them losing, especially if the likes of Mo Williams, Zydrunas Ilgausakas, Daniel Gibson and Anderson Varejao (who had 18 and 8 against the Pacers) perform well. The Bulls will probably push them closer than the 93-107 loss on Wednesday, but I still can't see them winning. 97-93 I thought I'd get more comments if this was in this forum/thread, lol.
Luol Deng hits his first two shots to give the Bulls the 4-2 lead. Nice defense and fastbreak by the Bulls 6-2
The Bulls are playing too selfishly right now. * Lebron is killing us. KEEP LEBRON AWAY FROM THE LANE!
Tyrus can't buy a shot, which sucks. And BG sure looks better against Cleveland's second team than he does against the first team.
Ben Gordon is better coming off the bench where he'd play against second team automatically....he seems to play better after observing and not coming straight in. 6-8 right now...which is good.. Aggressive move by Noc to get us back within 1 point.
Deng and Gordon shouldering the load for the Bulls right now to give us the 5 point lead 38 - 43....I hope Derrick Rose will get his drive game going.
No. Clevelaands first unit was just playing great defense. Everyone on our team struggled against it.
54 - 57 at half time...the Bulls are going to have to figure out a way to out wit Lebron James out of the lane. We he have the 3 point lead, but will not sustain it if we can't keep Lebron away from the basket.
I won't have NBALP until next weekend or shortly after, so I can't see what's going on. From the box score, Gordon is on fire.
An exciting game thus far...no blow outs and is punch for punch...end of the 3rd quarter score 77 - 74 Bulls lead...the Bulls need to prepare for Lebron in the 4th and be ready to answer back...they will need to share the ball effectively to get buckets. * Lebron is killing us with isolations the Cavs lead 82 - 77...the Bulls need to play Lebron more aggressively before he is in the act of shooting.
