Derrick Rose dropped another 36 points to lead Chicago back from nine down in the second quarter to win it 96-90. The Bulls nearly beat themselves with 21 turnovers, many of which I didn’t feel were really forced (they made some bad passes), but even though Rose accounted for six of them, he did what he always does–step up when the game is on the line. With the game tied at 67 entering the final quarter, Rose missed only one shot the rest of the way as he scored 14 of his points. Need I say more about D-Rose? I mean, sh!t, he’s been putting the team on his back and winning games in the fourth quarter all season long. I’ve talked about it 1,000 times… last night was just more of the same. You better get used to it. How ’bout Kyle Korver, though? Indiana might want to keep someone glued to this dude in the final minutes, because he sunk another dagger. Up two with a minute left, Korver caught a pass from Joakim Noah and knocked down his first long-range attempt of the night. He scored just five points in the game, but he was damn sure to make ‘em count. Carlos Boozer, who was… awful in game one, got off to a rough start (two TOs in the first three minutes), but he stepped his game up to the tune of 17 points and 16 boards while only coughing it up once over the rest of the game. He also held Tyler Hansbrough, who lit him up in game one, to six points on 2-12. The Pacers didn’t get much production from their starting frontcourt… Roy Hibbert only had eight points and four boards. Jeff Foster was solid off the bench (nine points, 4-5), but that isn’t going to be enough to beat the Bulls. Remember, Boozer got tooled on in game one and it still wasn’t quite enough because Rose is f@ckin’ ridiculous. Danny Granger had it all twisted when he said that sh!t about “if you can stop Rose than you’ve stopped the Bulls.” You can’t stop Rose, as he now knows…
Pretty sure you aren’t Spiderman, Danny, so it looks like that aint gonna happen. Plan B: Derrick Rose is going to do his thing, so if you want to win a game, you need to give Luol Deng the business, and Dr. Hibbert/Psycho T need to out-play Chicago’s frontcourt. So far in this series, Danny Granger has scored 24 and 19 points on 50 percent. That’s decent, but look at what Derrick Rose is doing for his squad. That has been the difference in this series… each team has gotten nice production from a few role players, but Rose is taking over down the stretch and winning these games.
Indiana lost starting PG Darren Collison when he stepped on the foot of a camera man late in the second quarter. Collison didn’t do much for numbers before going down (eight points, 2-5), but he had his team up nine at the time. The lead had shrunk to three less than three minutes later. Collison is day-to-day for now, and we’ll have to wait and see if he’s ready for game three. If not, expect another TJ Ford sighting… but don’t expect this…
The Miami Heat are responsible for the first blowout of the 2011 playoffs; they beat the Sixers by 21 (94-73). I didn’t see this one, so uh, here you go:
As Rick Kamla pointed out, Philly shot 20 percent in the first quarter. They went 34.2 percent in the game, and they also clunked 7 of 20 freethrows. Not gonna get the job done against the Heaters. Andre Iguodala, who isn’t exactly the most popular guy in Philly these days, isn’t helping his cause… he had another bad game (5 PTS and 5 TO on 2-8). If Philly wants to win a game in this series, they’re simply going to have to make some shots. They’re yet to shoot better than 41 percent in the first two. Let’s see, numbers… LeBron led Miami with 29, Bosh had 21/11, and Dwyane ignored his migrane headache while scoring 14 points.
Random photo…
If you don’t dress like this when you go to an NBA game, you aren’t doing it right.
