You know who I hated seeing last night -- Pat Riley - scumbag, jag off. He has singlehandedly ruined the game of basketball. He's combined the worst aspects of NCAA and the NBA. And now either the rest of the owners are going to impose ridiculous caps, knowing they can't compete if this is how its going to be, or they...I don't know what they'll do...:-( Of course, if Derrick looks deep into his soul and finds there his inner patronus that will drive away all those blood-sucking Heat Dementors and we win the next three, then, well, I'm good. I still have hope, but I've also got a number of "proud of the Bulls" items on my list. You don't know that Derrick will get better, but even MJ had to. I can't complain about Derrick's trajectory so far. Nevertheless, despite the list of "can't complains" -- it'll be much better to stick it to Riley, LeBron and the Heat -- NOW! Go Bulls!
To get back to your analogy, which is a good one, I think that Derrick's bread and butter has been to give himself enough room through his quickness and elevation so that he can survey the floor from the air and make a good decision. But the pressure from the Heat's defense is too much. He doesn't have enough space to think through things, and he gets anxious to make the burst and get separation and loses the ball, like that one time in the OT when he just dribbled it off his leg. He was just moving too fast. You may be right. There may not be enough time for him to adjust fully to what the Heat are doing. We're pretty damn close. Our defense is almost there. And honestly, like Jordan who had to trust Paxson, Pippen, Kerr, Bobby Hansen, Derrick is going to have to work less hard as an individual, and work harder at using the weapons he does have at his disposal -- even Ronnie Brewer for the three!
I hope you see this positive. Bulls can still get this 4 wins. Very unlikely, but not impossible. And even if the Heat win game 5...I will be disappointed at first, but happy later about the Bulls exceeded my exspectations. Go Bulls! Give us one more win!
The positive outlook is this. Chicago fans show up wearing red and the united center is a mad house unlike every other game. The Bulls feed on the energy and get some home court calls and win it. They're still faced with having to win the next two and ultimately three straight. However, the series moves back to Miami with a ton of pressure on the heat. If they lose, they go back to the mad house for winner takes all. The bad news is only three teams in conference finals history have come back from 3-1, and the last time was 1981.
I think we would have won this series if MikeDC had been here to explain how the Bulls can win which would have made it's way to RealGM and then to Mike McGraw then to Thibs.
Yeah, this is a case where what I think and what I hope for have diverged. Let's win game 5 and take it from there.
I am ok. The Bulls are too. Jeesss. ECF, best record in basketball, Noah and boozer hurt a lot...come on. Ya I am disappointed, but look at the entire season!
