We’re one game into each semifinal series and all but one of my guaransheeds aren’t looking so brilliant. On Sunday afternoon, the Grizzlies came off of one day of rest and beat the Thunder, who took care of the Nuggets with ease in five games. Yesterday, two more game-one upsets occured. Atlanta rolled into Chicago without Kirk Hinrich and made everything they threw at the basket, resulting in an eight-point win. In the late game, Dallas rallied back from a horrible second-quarter finish and third-quarter start to win a tight one over the Lakers. The good news? I don’t really care if I look dumb… I’d be thrilled to see the Grizzlies beat OKC, and I won’t give a sh!t if the Lakers get sent fishing. The Bulls, though… c’mon guys, don’t be losing to the goddamn Hawks. That would be absolutely unacceptable.
It took the Bulls nearly five minutes to score a point, putting them in an early nine-point hole, but that’s hardly a hole that they shouldn’t be able to climb out of, obviously. Climb out of it they did… even though Derrick Rose was 2-10 and Atlanta was gunning at 56 percent from the field, Chicago only trailed by one at the half, a half which they finished on a 9-4 run that was capped by an uncontested Carlos Boozer layup. The momentum had swung Chicago’s way, and they took the lead just a couple minutes into the third, as I expected they would. I was feeling pretty certain that they’d win the game down one at the half with ATL shooting so well and Rose shooting so poorly, and I felt even more certain when they built their third-quarter lead to six points while Atlanta clunked 9 of 12 shots. They appeared to be coming unravelled… Josh Smith was firing midrange jumpers–it was bad. So, how’d they manage to come back and win this thing with relative ease? J-J-J-Joooooooooooooooooooeeeeeee Johnson, as the Highlight Factory’s annoying PA guy would say.
JJ scored eight points in the final four minutes of the third to give Atlanta a one-point lead… then he knocked down a pair of triples as they stretched that one-point lead to 12. Shockingly, the Bulls never made any substantial comeback; the closest that ever got was six. For the first time in what seems like a really long time, Derrick Rose wasn’t able to carry his team to victory in a game that was tight early in the fourth. He did score 11 points, but he got stuffed on two crucial possessions as ATL was in the process of bringing their lead back up to double digits, and 2 of those 11 came when the game was over. He didn’t have a very good game overall–took 27 shots to get 24 points–but credit Joe Johnson and the Hawks for winning this game, because Chicago didn’t hand it to them. Johnson nailed five of five threes as he dropped 34 big ones, many of which came at crucial points in the game. Joe Johnson out-clutched Derrick Rose in this game… and to out-clutch D-Rose is doin’ somethin’. Former Bull Jamal Crawford was also huge; he scored 22 off the bench. Jeff Teague was good enough to get the job done with 10 points, and Al Horford grabbed a game-high 13 boards that helped Atlanta match Chicago on the glass.
With all due respect to the Hawks, I still feel like Chicago wins this series pretty easily in the end. Atlanta shot 51 percent last night. They made over half of their 13 three-point tries. They shot more freethrows than the Bulls. In fact, Derrick Rose didn’t take a single trip to the charity stripe. That’s never going to happen again, and neither is 50+ percent from distance on 13 tries. Ha, I’m having an occurrance od deja vu here… I said this same sh!t when they beat the Magic in game one of their first-round series by shooting some insane percentage from the floor. The Chicago Bulls aren’t the Orlando Magic, though, and as long as D-Rose can walk then I’m confident in them.
By the way, it’s been reported that Derrick Rose will become the league’s youngest MVP. Via Yahoo! Sports…
CHICAGO (AP)—Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose is the NBA’s MVP, becoming the youngest player in league history to win the award, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.
The person spoke Monday night on the condition of anonymity because a formal announcement has not been made. That could come Tuesday, with a formal presentation before Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
The news is hardly a surprise.
A game one loss and an MVP trophy… that’s an awful lot of pressure for game two, but I think my man can handle it. The reason that he’s won this award is because he’s thrived under pressure, so this is actually quite fitting, assuming he doesn’t go for 24 points on 27 shots in another loss. Anyway, congratulations to Mr. Rose, who asked before the season, “why can’t I be MVP?” Well, Derrick, looks like you can! …and all of those doubters were goddamn fools to be laughing at your preseason conjecture. I can proudly say I wasn’t one of the dumbies. I’ve seen MVP potential in Rose ever since the first time I saw him play an NBA game. I recall that he had a horrid first half, the Bulls were losing, and then he scored like 20-something points in the second to bring them back for a W. You could just tell that not only did he have “it”, but that he was pretty much the definition of having “it”.
Mavs @ Lakers was going pretty much as I had imagined up until the three second mark of the second quarter. LA lost an early lead during a late first-quarter slump, then got it back again as Dallas went two minutes without a bucket, and it was going to be a five-point game with LA in control entering the half. I was essentially expecting the following: LA takes an early lead, blows it, gets it back again, and skates to a win that was secure, but probably not as secure as it should’ve been. Then Jason Terry decided to be a dumbf@ck…
…and what should’ve been a Ron Artest foul resulted in a Dirk Nowitzki technical, and it was suddenly a nine-point game with all the signs of an impending choke-job/blowout. When LA proceeded to score the first seven points of the third quarter, I figured it was all over but the crying. Pau Gasol had just dunked the ball, and then Derek Fisher stole the inbound pass, setting Kobe Bryant up with a cold-blooded three. What had just happened to Dallas was a demoralizing 21-2 run, complete with stupid plays, Kobe Bryant daggers, and a bad call. The fragile psyche of the Dallas Mavericks couldn’t possibly allow them to come back from this, could it? I was seeing flashbacks to 2007 as the camera displayed shots of Mark Cuban looking all like “you gotta be sh!tting me!” …it wasn’t looking promising.
What happened next surprised the sh!t out of me. Dallas made five straight baskets, and then Corey Brewer (who played like five minutes total against Portland) got up off the bench and nailed a three that made it a one-possession game. They’d fallen back by seven by the time the quarter finished up, but atleast they had successfully weathered the storm. They would end up doing more than weather the storm, too… they created one of their own with a couple of threes that brought it back to a one-point game with nine minutes left. No one led by more than five from that point on, and LA was up three with a minute left. Dirk Nowitzki then clutched a short J which would turn out to be the game’s final bucket. That leaves the Mavs down one… so how’d they win? Well, Jason Terry wasn’t the only guy fouling people 50+ feet from the basket…
I think Dirk did a little acting on the play, but Pau, why were you out there making any contact at all? You aren’t going to be taking the ball from Dirk out near halfcourt. This crucial foul is pretty much the only possible outcome of what you decided to do. Not a smart play. Dirk made both of his freebies, and Jason Kidd stole an attempted hand off from Pau to Kobe…
Kidd could’ve ended up looking as dumb as Pau had a foul been called, but I’m not going to get on his case for trying to deny Kobe Bryant the ball around the three-point line. I think that’s a good play. Why wasn’t Pau’s attempt at denying Dirk the ball a good play? Because he didn’t properly position himself to do so, forcing him to try to reach across Dirk’s body to deflect the pass… and that’s never a good plan. Even if you don’t foul the guy, it will probably look like you did. Anyway, Kidd missed one of the freethrows, making it 96-94. Kobe Bryant for the game…
…surprisingly no! That was a great look, and Mark Cuban and friends should be thanking the basketball gods that he missed it. He finished up with 36 points and was 14-28 on the night to that point, so he was feelin’ it, too. Said Rick Carlisle: “You’ve got to make plays, and you’ve got to dodge some bullets. We did both.”
Yes you did. How ’bout some numbers? Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 28/14. Jason Terry didn’t give me a chance to unload on him with his 15 points on 6-10. Peja Stojakovic was key off the bench with 10 points on 2-3 from long range. Pau Gasol was decent with 15/11/7, Lamar Odom was good with 15/12, but Andrew Bynum was rather quiet (8/5). They’re going to need more from him… if he gets out-played by Tyson Chandler every night then I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose.
