How Many Chicago Bulls Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

How many Chicago Bulls does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one, but all 14 of them would help!

You can bet your bottom dollar that you would hear Tom Thibodeau getting involved too. "Jo! Jo! Hold the ladder Jo!"

Should the bulb fall, Kyle Korver would dive on the floor and keep it from shattering. 

Should the person on top of the ladder fall, the next person in line would just step up and take his place. 

That's the story of this team and it was on full display last night. There are those who want to characterize this team as being too dependent on Derrick Rose. They want to say that last year in the postseason they were exposed when they fell to the Heat because, outside of Rose, they don't have anyone who can score. 

This year things have changed and last night it was never more evident. 

As Derrick Rose was suffering through literally the worst night of his career, having played only one game in 31 days and full of rust, the rest of the team stepped up. People want to argue that all the Heat have to do is stop Rose and they win. How much more are they going to stop him?

No, this is a very different team and the Bulls have gone 16-7 without Rose, 17-7 if you count last night. Twice they've beaten the Heat now, and in those two games Rose has totaled two points. 

People ask, "How is that different than last year?" It's very different. In the Bulls three regular-season wins against the Heat last year, Rose averaged 29 points and shot .446. The Bulls won largely because of the performance of Rose. 

Last year during the postseason, the Bulls offense stagnated when the Heat were able to trap Rose and effectively tell the Bulls, "You beat us." Last year the Bulls couldn't answer that challenge. This year they can. 

Things are the same in the sense that the Bulls won the regular season games. They are different in how they won them. Last year the Bulls MVP produced, either through scoring or passing, 43 percent of the Bulls points against the Miami Heat. 

Last night he contributed 19 percent. 

Again, how much more can the Heat slow him down? 

And for those who want to argue that the Bulls are better without Rose, there are two points. First, that has to be one of the most positively stupid things a person could argue. Even including last night's performance, the Bulls are a plus-9.4 per 48 minutes with Rose on the court and plus-6.7 with him on the bench. That's a difference of 2.7 points per 48 minutes. 

They also have a winning percentage of .805 in games he's played versus a .695 wining percentage when he hasn't. Yes the Bulls are outstanding without Rose. That doesn't mean they're not even better with him. 

A "better" argument could be made that the Heat are better without Wade because they've won 10-of-11 without him, and that argument would be equally stupid. 

Rose has the fourth best APER in the league. He's one of the best players in the league. He is a superstar. So let's put aside any notion that the Bulls are "better" without Rose. It's not just provably untrue, it's proven to be untrue. 

That doesn't preclude the real conclusion though that's pertinent to this season in the NBA. The Chicago Bulls are better without Rose this year than they were last year, and that has all the relevance in the world when it comes to what might happen this postseason. 

People keep wanting to frame the wrong question. They want to make things a question of whether the Bulls can beat the Heat in the postseason. The real question is whether they can beat the Heat when Rose is not playing well and the Bulls have now twice answered that question with a resounding yes. 

It's easy to run and hide behind what happened in last year's postseason and say "This is what happened in the playoffs last year" but the Bulls played the same basketball in the postseason last year as they did in the regular season. It's just that eventually Rose, through injury, fatigue and a great defensive effort by the Heat, and specifically by LeBron James, stopped that team. 

This year they've proven the whole year that they've adjusted. Roses is attempting 1.6 fewer field-goal attempts this year than last. The team was 12th in efficiency last year. This year they are fifth. They are less reliant on Rose and they are a more efficient offense. They've won without Rose. 

How much more can the Bulls do in the regular season to prove that they can win without a superhuman effort by Rose than to actually win without a superhuman effort from Rose? 

The Miami Heat might have the Big Three but the Chicago Bulls have the Big We. The Bulls bench dominated the Miami Heat bench last night. One could argue that in the postseason that doesn't matter as much.

The thing is, that argument falls flat when you consider that it was the Bulls bench that led the comeback and closed out the game in overtime and that it was the Bulls bench that outplayed the Heat starters.  The Bulls were getting little from Joakim Noah, Rip Hamilton and Derrick Rose. 

The Bulls scarcely differentiate between the starters and the bench. Tom Thibodeau last year was sometimes a veritable prisoner of his rotations, but this year he'll tinker until he finds what's working and once he does, he sticks with it. 

While you can argue that Kyle Korver isn't going to go 5-of-6 from deep every night, including hitting one shot from Valparaiso, you also aren't going to have Hamilton and Rose combining for nine points every night. 

That's precisely how the Bulls are different this year. You might not know who is going to step it up from one game to the next, but they have a multitude of players that can. They are a far more diverse offense than they were last year. 

Last season the Bulls averaged 3.95 players per game who scored in double digits. Rose accounted for nearly 25 percent of those. This year they are averaging 4.39 double-digit points per game and Rose has accounted for less than 12 percent of those. 

Again, that's the argument, isn't it? If the argument is over whether the Bulls can beat the Heat when Rose is shut down, they proved they can by actually doing it—and they did it twice!

This also isn't like last year where the Bulls won one game against the Heat when LeBron James didn't even play and another when Chris Bosh played horribly. All three of the Big Three played, and played well, combining for 71 points on 58 shots. 

Yet in spite of the fact that the Heat Big Three had all their stars clicking, and the Bulls MVP was playing his worst game ever, the Heat lost. The moral of this story is that while everyone is asking who the Bulls have besides Derrick Rose, the real question is who do the Heat have beyond the Big Three?

Last night the Bulls bench blasted the Heat bench 47-7. They won the previous contest's bench battle 56-14. Last year the Bulls averaged only 18.8 points from their bench against the Heat, playoffs included. In the loss earlier this year they scored just 17. Over those nine games the Heat averaged 15.9 points per game. 

Net bench scoring from the first nine games was an average of 16.6 to 15.9. Over the last two games it's 51.5 to 10.5. Are we really going to try and pretend that there's not a difference between .7 points and 40 points?

We can make this about whether the Heat were "trying," which flies in the face of everything both the Heat and Erik Spoelstra's have said. Prior to the game Spoelstra decreed the Heat needed a "signature road win." 

It is a game which, according to Ethan J. Skolnick of the Palm Beach Post, had LeBron James declaring, "This is one of the worst feelings I've had in the regular season this year," James said, soaking his feet, appearing emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted.

The editorial description of James' appearance is Sknlnick's, not mine. 

Heat fans and pundits might be declaring the Heat weren't trying, or didn't have same effort, but the Heat themselves are giving a different account of things. The glaring from Wade, the sniping at one another as the game started to dissolve, the obvious frustration indicates it was clearly a different case. 

Make no mistake about it. The Heat "wanted" this game. They just couldn't take it. 

Yes, there's a difference between this year's Bulls and last year's Bulls. And oh yeah, there's a difference between this year's Heat and last year's Heat too. The Heat have a lower winning percentage and a lower margin of victory than they did last year. 

This isn't about the "playoffs" versus "regular season." It's about 2011 versus 2012 and the 2012 version of the Bulls is better than the 2011 version. They're more complete. They do a better job of sharing the ball. They do a better job of having more people score the ball. They are less dependent on Derrick Rose.