Critical Bulls-Cavs Game 6 Comes Back to Derrick Rose vs. LeBron James
Game 6 between the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers is bigger than any one or two players.
Unless, of course, those one or two players are LeBron James and Derrick Rose.
Up 3-2 in the series, with injuries both severe and secondary strewn across the roster, the Cavaliers are searching for an Eastern Conference Finals appearance, their first in six years and fourth in franchise history.
Working off two straight losses, beset by injuries of their own, the Bulls are trying to extend their season and transcend history, which says they have little to no chance of surviving. Teams that trail 3-2 in the second round win the series just 18.9 percent of the time, according to WhoWins.com.
Nothing and no one is more important than those immediate stakes.
Still, as the Bulls prepare to fight on or exit, as the Cavaliers ready themselves to advance or tread water, there's no use pretending the outcome of Game 6, whatever it is, won't be patterned after the performances of James and Rose.
Supporting casts will still matter. Let's make that clear.
They mattered during Cleveland's 106-101 victory in Game 5, when Kyrie Irving complemented James' hallmark effort with a 25-point, five-assist outing, despite at times favoring his myriad injuries with a limp, idle offensive possession or defensive lapse.
They mattered during Cleveland's 86-84 win in Game 4, when Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson thoroughly outplayed Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson.
They mattered during Chicago's 99-96 triumph in Game 3, when Jimmy Butler made offensive life hell for the Cavaliers, limiting them to 6-of-17 shooting when he was on the ball and serving as the closest possible thing to a James stopper.
They've just mattered. And they'll continue to matter in Game 6, as this tale of back and forth reaches a fever pitch.
But big games always come back to the foremost superstars on either side.
Without Rose playing up to the moment, the Bulls won't rally against a Cavaliers squad that turned this once ugly-yet-thrilling, Chicago-branded sparring into a battle of offensive firepower during Game 6.
It was Rose who needed to come up huge even when the ebb and flow of this series was being dictated by Chicago. He banked in the game-winning three-pointer to give the Bulls a 2-1 edge in Game 3. He dribbled around Irving, evaded James and went under Mozgov's outstretched arms to convert a layup that, at the time, put the Bulls in position to force overtime in Game 4.
Indeed, much like this matchup in general, Rose's displays haven't always been pretty. He's averaging 23.2 points and 6.6 assists while protecting the ball. But he's shooting 37.8 percent from the floor and has attempted more than three free throws just twice. He also went 1-of-12 from the field in the second half of Game 4.
That type of inconsistency is maddening, especially from a superstar.
Still, there's no way the Bulls are in this series at all without him. They're being outgunned by 29.6 points per 100 possessions when he's on the bench, and his lukewarm efficiency is not for lack of aggression.
As Ricky O'Donnell wrote for SB Nation following Rose's heroics in Game 3: "Here's Derrick Rose, knees rebuilt, game redefined, winning a playoff game against LeBron James and the Cavaliers on a last-second shot. It seems too good to be true. For once, it isn't."
While Rose is not "back" to his former MVP self in the most technical terms, his new self is equally, if not more, important to the Bulls' playoff hopes, as he's shown more than once against Cleveland.
James finds himself in a similar situation. Not one of his stat lines or crunch-time exploits seems too good to be true, but he remains Cleveland's lifeline despite playing less-than-ideal basketball through four of the first five contests.
Even after exploding for 38 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, three steals and three blocks in Game 5, he's still shooting 41.5 percent for the series. His true shooting percentage is the lowest it's ever been in the playoffs, and he was coughing the ball up at an alarming rate until his zero-turnover display on Tuesday night.
This kind of inconsistency isn't so much maddening as unsettling. It's uncharacteristic of James to be inefficient, or sloppy, or average more than 25 field-goal attempts per game, or appear human at all.
But, like Rose, James is still carrying his team.
A 3-2 series lead would be a 3-2 hole if not for James' fallaway buzzer-beater in Game 4. If he doesn't complete the chase-down block of Rose's tilt-tying layup attempt late in the fourth quarter of Game 5, Cleveland might have lost and be trailing 3-2 anyway.
Erase both those plays, those pivotal moments, from memory, and Cleveland could have already lost this series.
Instead of bowing out early or facing elimination, the Cavaliers are in control. And they're in control because of James and, as Bleacher Report's Ethan Skolnick deftly describes, his ability to adapt rather than settle:
"To grab control of this second-round series, the Cavaliers needed James to loosen his grip some, at least in terms of possession time. He may love the basketball, but you can sometimes show your love by letting go. They needed him to junk the perimeter jab-stepping that had led to so many off-balance, off-rhythm, off-target launches. They needed him to stop being so stationary and stagnant. They needed him to get on the move, and in the post. And when he got the ball from any of his teammates, he needed to get it back in the air.
"
Those are the tweaks James made in Game 5, the adjustments that helped Cleveland build a 17-point fourth-quarter lead not even a gutsy Chicago run could nullify.
More impressively, James made those changes against a defense that tailors its schemes to account for his play style.
Butler suffocated him. James was double-teamed in the post. He drew two, three and four defenders into the paint when he attacked the basket.
Seventeen of his 24 shots were contested. He buried 11 of them.
"It's one thing to talk about, OK, don't lose confidence or don't lose your way or don't lose your aggressivity, but human nature takes away from most people that kind of feeling when things don't go well," Cavaliers coach David Blatt said afterward, per Northeast Ohio Media Group's Joe Vardon. "Not from that guy."
Not James. Not in Game 5. Not in Game 6. He has room for neither hesitation nor doubt.
Not Rose, either. He'll need to turn in a similarly spectacular, self-aplomb performance in Game 6 if there's to be a Game 7.
After all, if not them, then who?
Irving shot himself out of a rut in Game 5, but his injuries won't magically heal. He's suffering from too many of them, per ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst:
Pau Gasol has missed the last two contests, and Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau didn't exactly offer reassurances about his status moving forward, according to ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin:
Kevin Love isn't breaking out of his sling for the Cavaliers. Gibson has been an offensive detriment since Game 4 (6-of-19 shooting) for the Bulls. Butler looks exhausted offensively.
There are limits to what Noah, Mozgov and Thompson can do. Though Blatt and Thibodeau will try to outmaneuver each other, all the phantom timeouts in the world won't allow this series to be decided from the sidelines.
Just as they shaped the situation we have now, both Rose and James will be the ones to define the direction Game 6 goes.
Whatever happens—Game 7 or not—will still be bigger than both of them. But it'll happen because of them.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
