Breaking Down How Bulls Bench Shocked Mighty Miami Heat
The NBA playoffs are around the corner, but we already know who the deepest team in the east is—and it's the Chicago Bulls. They proved as much in an epic win over the Miami Heat.
The Bulls did enough for me in going 9-4 in games that Derrick Rose had to miss recently because of a groin injury. You can pretty much put another win up there and call it 10, because the defending MVP did little to help his team win on Thursday night.
Rose had only two points on 1-for-13 shooting in the Bulls' 96-86 overtime win against the visiting Miami Heat.
The Heat may have the big three, but the Bulls have had to get used to spreading the love around in the past couple of weeks, and they were well-equipped to get the win with versatility as five guys were in double digits—three off the bench.
At the end of the day, the Bulls' bench outscored the Heat's subs 47-7. In fact, guys not named LeBron James, Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh scored 15 total points on Thursday night.
So what gives?
Despite the bench domination, this game could have gone either way late, and the Heat even had the lead with 2.2 seconds left in the game—and that's when CJ Watson happened.
In overtime, the Heat went into shock mode, where they were content to sit back and let the marquee names take over.
Consider this isolation play, where the only person is the one with the ball, Dwyane Wade. He bumps Omer Asik, trying to get distance to get a shot off. Vital rebounders are playing the wings.
The 7-foot center gets a hand on a Wade fade away, and the Bulls are off and running.
The Heat actually played great defense, and I am convinced they can rely on that portion of their game well into the postseason.
During regulation, the Heat actually held the bulls to 43% shooting and just 84 points in regulation, via ESPN.
Consider the following video clip filled with highlights from last night's game.
What becomes very evident is something that concerned me last night, the Heat's role players slacked off on Bulls' shooters late.
You will notice a couple of moments when Kyle Korver was able to get a shot of with a defender failing to close out. Vital stops would have negated any Bulls run late. 2:05 mark of video.
More than lapses in defense late or mismatches like the one you will see at the 3:35 mark in the video, the most pressing concern that the Heat will have to deal with now doesn't have to deal with x's and o's.
The Chicago Bulls' cast of no-names now has immense confidence headed into the postseason. More importantly, they know they can beat the Heat without the use of their leader and No. 1 player in Derrick Rose.
The Bulls now have two wins against the Heat. The first was a 106-102 victory in Miami without Rose, and the second was last night, when a rusty MVP was left to pedestrian results.
The Bulls now have something very scary to hold over Miami if they do meet in the postseason, and that's a confidence and swagger that they can beat them, even without being at full strength—and that will be near impossible to take from them.
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