2011 NBA Playoffs:What Does the Chicago Bulls' Blowout over the Heat Mean?

The question being asked today is what should be made of the Chicago Bulls' blowout over the Miami Heat. Did they establish the way to beat Miami, or is it just a Game 1 win with the home team holding serve?

Did they win because they were better or was Miami just overlooking them because they were expecting a cakewalk after beating their Goliath, Boston?

It's easy to dismiss the blowout as the Heat's "Boston hangover," but perhaps that's a bit too convenient.

Just stop and consider the following facts. 

• The Bulls had the best record in the NBA
• The Bulls swept the Heat in the regular season
• The Bulls led the NBA in Defensive Rating
• The Bulls led the NBA in Opponent Field Goal Percentage
• The Bulls let the NBA in rebound differential.
• The Bulls led the NBA in efficiency recap differential
• The Bulls have averaged more points per game than the Heat during the postseason.
• The Bulls have given up fewer points per game than the Heat during the postseason.
• The Bulls have averaged more assist per game than the Heat during the postseason.
• The Bulls have averaged more blocks per game than the Heat during the postseason.
• The Bulls have averaged more points per 100 possessions than the Heat during the postseason.
• The Bulls have given up fewer points per 100 possessions than the Heat during the postseason.
• The Bulls net rating, plus-9.6 is more than double the Heat's of 4.0 in the postseason.

With the exception of the last statement, all of the above things were true even prior to Sunday's blowout. The Bulls net rating was merely 50 percent higher before Game 1. The point is, the signs were there.

Statistically, Chicago had actually been playing better in the postseason than Miami, whatever the talk was saying. Statistically, the Bulls were a better team than the Heat in the regular season. On the court they were the better team in the four games the teams have played.

At some point the thought needs to be entertained that the possibility exists that the reason Chicago is winning more games, winning head to head games and statistically dominant over Miami has to do with the possibility that they actually are a better team.

In other words, maybe, just maybe, Miami's not going to win this series because they aren't good enough to win this series. Maybe Game 1 wasn't some sort of anomaly, but just what was consistent with what all the evidence was pointing to coming into the series.

That doesn't mean that Miami is going to get swept in four straight 20-point games, but it's hard to see how they're going to answer the three main factors that went into the Game 1 win four times in six games. The fact is, without doing that Miami cannot win the series. These three factors are defense, rebounding and depth.

Defense 

Much of the talk after Game 1 revolved around the idea that Dwyane Wade and LeBron James weren't getting into the paint and weren't getting to the line. Typically the pair combine for nine makes at the rim on 13 attempts. In Game 1 they were a combined 5-9. 

That makes for nearly 50 percent fewer trips to the rim, and a minus-13.6 percent field goal percentage off of their normal shooting. So what was the issue?

Two plays stood out defensively for the Bulls. One was Joakim Noah defending Wade on a pick and roll switch at the top of the key. Wade wasn't able to get around either side of Noah and when he drove Noah stayed in front of him and blocked his shot.

The other play was nearly identical except for the players being different, with LeBron handling the ball on the pick and roll, and Taj Gibson defending. The result was the same.

It's easy to think that the reason they didn't get the dynamic duo to the rim was because they weren't running the plays to get them there, but that's not the case. 

Two plays, the pick and roll with the ball handler keeping the ball, and the isolation play are the primary means Miami utilizes to get James and Wade into the paint.

Now, according to all the pundits of the basketball world the "new" Heat have expanded their half-court repertoire. The evidence doesn't quite measure up to that. In fact, it points to the opposite.  

In the regular season the Heat ran isolation plays 12.21 percent of the time and the pick and roll 19.86 percent of the time. In the postseason they've run the isolation 12.97 percent of the time and the pick and roll 21.32 percent of the time.

The effect has been that the Miami Heat offense has been less efficient, regardless of what the pundits are saying. The Heat have scored 4.1 fewer points per 100 possessions in the postseason than they did during the regular reason. Lest you think I'm using offensive rating advantageously, they've been scoring 8.6 fewer points per game in the postseason.

Last night they ran the isolation 15.38 percent of the time and the pick and roll 31.87 percent of the time. 

They're getting more entrenched into depending on James and Wade, not less. In Game 1 the two combined for 32 of the Heat's 68 attempts and accounted for 58.3 percent of the Heat possessions. The other of the big three accounted for 32.4 percent, albeit much more efficiently.

In other words the Heat tried to get Wade and James into the paint, they just couldn't. The Bulls defense just had too much stopping power. It's not so much that they didn't get James and Wade in the paint, it's that they couldn't get James and Wade in the paint.

Chicago's defense was able to keep them out without fouling them. It wasn't what James and Wade weren't doing so much as it was what the Chicago's two tier defense was doing with Keith Bogans or Ronnie Brewer and Luol Deng defending the first line, and Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson or Omer Asik defending the second line.

The Bulls' defense did what no one thought was possible, they stopped James and Wade. For the Heat to win four games in six, they are obviously going to need more than 33 from James and Wade, and granted, they probably will get more than that, but how much more?

This has been a big part of Chicago's formula for winning this season. They've given up the fourth fewest field goals in the paint of any team in the league, and that's in spite of missing Noah, their best interior defender for a large part of the season.

There's a lot of talk about how the Heat didn't have James in the first game between the teams, but it was dismissed the importance of the Bulls not having Noah in the first game. In their second game, it was Noah's second game back from surgery and the defense wasn't in sync yet. The value of Noah has been evident in the last two games. 

In his third game back the Bulls gave up 46 points to the pair. In the last two games the James, Wade pairing have gone for a total of 79 points on 69 shots. They've gotten just 20 free-throw attempts in the last two games combined. They normally get 17 total free throws per game.

Combined, they have averaged 52.2 points on 37 shots normally. That's a difference of 0.27 shots per field goal attempt on their normal shooting. The Bulls' defense has effectively turned two of the game's most efficient scorers into below average shooters.  

This is the thing that Noah does so well, as does Gibson. They stay in front and defend quick players without fouling. In the history of the NBA, only 14 teams in NBA history have given up fewer field goals and free throw attempts, and none have done so running a faster pace.

Add in Deng's defense on James, and you've got King stopping power. Here's a fact from the game that is shocking. LeBron James did not get around Deng and to the rim one time during Game 1. In fact, he only got past Deng one time, period—and that was on a pick and roll—and he missed. 

So much of the lead up to this series has been about the Heat, but just think of this series from Deng's perspective for a moment. He was arguably the biggest slight on the All-Defense team. There's been fresh wounds brought up in regards to Chicago's courtship of the James, which would have moved him to the bench. 

Luol Deng has a lot of incentive to shut down James. Bottom line, if he continues what he started in Game 1, Deng's defensive performance will be hailed as one of the greatest in NBA postseason history, and Deng is capable of doing it particularly with the help from Gibson and Noah. 

This isn't about refs or getting calls, it's about playing outstanding defense, and that's what the Bulls do. They make you earn your points from the field, and they make that hard to do. It's part of the formula the Bulls have for winning.

Talk all you want about the "New Heat" offense, but the facts remain, it's not that new. In the postseason they are less efficient than they were in the regular season. They've been more dependent on their staple plays. As a team Miami has the second  fewest assists per game of any team in the postseason with just over 15. That doesn't scream ball sharing.

So will James and Wade score more than 33 points from here on out? There's little doubt they will, but not a lot more. Don't expect them to start racking up 60 combined points a night and making the Chicago Bulls look like some second rate defense. That's not going to happen.

Probably the most that can be reasonably expected from them is to average just a below their regular season combined average of 52. It's doubtful they'll average 50.  

Depth

Even if you grant that they score 50 though, there's still the other problems that the Heat are faced with. They still don't have the length or the depth to match with Chicago.

First, let's look at the Big Three comparison. Yes, Miami has the best Big Three in the NBA. However, the Bulls' overlooked Big Three are far less shabby than suggested. In fact, Rose, Deng and Boozer average more combined points than any trio in the NBA except Miami's. 

The Heat's Big Three have averaged 70.9 points per game collectively, the Bulls' Big Three 59.9. In the postseason Miami's three have averaged 68.1 and the Bulls' trio 57.9, That's a difference of about 11 points in both the regular season and the postseason.

When the trios have faced off, the average has been 67 for Miami and 60.7 for Chicago, a mere difference of 6.3 points per game. So that means the Bulls 4-10 is going to need to make up somewhere between six and 11 points per game.

In the three games they've played with the Heat intact, the Bulls' "cast" has outscored the Heat "cast" by 15.3 points, and averaged 16 more rebounds, 5.7 more assists, 2.3 more steals and 1.3 more blocks. That 6.3 edge the Big Three have isn't coming close to making up the production the Bulls' cast manufactures.

That amply shows the general crux of the problem for the Heat. Yes, they are better than Chicago's Big Three, but they aren't so much better that they can make up the difference everywhere else, particularly against a great defensive team.

It's a very big problem for the Heat. Where is the scoring going to come from? I know this is supposedly the question the Bulls are supposed to be wary of, but honestly, the Bulls do a better of job of sharing the ball. For the Bulls, 60 percent of their field goals have been assisted. For Miami, a mere 45 percent have been assisted.

The Bulls have more scoring options than the Heat. They have four players who have eclipsed the 100-point mark in the postseason, the Heat have three. The Bulls have seven players who have scored 50 or more, the Heat have five. In the postseason Noah, Gibson and Kyle Korver have combined for more points than the entire Heat supporting cast.

The Bulls' cast isn't just better than the Heat's cast, it's a lot better, and that's why they've dominated the Heat cast every time the teams have played.

The Heat have a really, really big problem in that they just don't have scorers outside of the Big Three, especially if the Big Three are going to be held to under 70 per game The Bulls basically don't lose when they give up 95 or fewer points.  They've won 59 of the 62 games where they accomplished that feat, and that's including the postseason.

It's highly unlikely that even the Miami Heat are going to beat the Bulls four times without scoring 96 or more points. It's "possible" in the sense that it's "possible" to win the lottery, but it's not realistic. Say what you want. Call me a homer. You can't be objective and sneeze at 59 of 62 though. There's just no way that Chicago, who has only lost three times all year when they've given up fewer than 95 is going to do it four times in the next six games.

If Miami is going to beat Chicago in this series, they're going to consistently have to post 95 points against the Bulls, and I just don't know where those 96 points are going to come from. I know it's easy to add 7-10 points to both James' and Wade's totals, but it's just not that simple. 

However, there's more to the discussion than the offensive side of the cast though. The real advantage the Bulls have in 4-10 is defensive. 

One big advantage that the Bulls have is that a large part of their defense is anchored by the likes of Noah, Bogans, Brewer, Gibson and Asik. For the Heat their defense is anchored by Wade and James. For the Bulls, their two best offensive players don't need to take the hardest defensive assignments. 

While Rose is an elite level defender he has the option of not needing to guard the elite players on the other team. Of course with Boozer, he not only doesn't have the option, he doesn't have the ability, so that's another story. 

Either way, it gives the Bulls a luxury the Heat don't have. Their two best offensive players don't need to spend equal energy on both ends of the court. Rose can guard the lesser guard, Boozer the lesser big man.

On the other hand Wade and James have to guard the best perimeter players for the other team. James in particular needs to provide a lot of help defense and is used to guard any player on the court. While that says a lot about the ability James has, it also says a lot about the defensive depth of the Heat.

All that energy that they spend on defense is energy they don't have to spend on offense. It's not a coincidence that in the third quarter when Chicago's fresh bench came in and Wade was looking ragged is when the Bulls started to get some separation from Miami.

Chasing Derrick Rose around tends to wear a player out. He's not an easy man to guard.

The Heat are stuck with a dilemma. Play with less talent, or play with less energy. That's not a choice the Bulls really have to make. The deeper the series goes, the deeper the problem is entrenched. It's hard to see how the Heat are going to resolve this issue. Depth just isn't an issue you can deal with in the postseason.

Rebounding

The other place the Chicago bigs come into play is on rebounding. I've heard a lot of people assess the situation and proclaim the Heat's problems can be resolved by "boxing out." It's really not that simple. Chicago's not just a good rebounding team, they're a great rebounding team. Not only that, they do it on both ends of the court.

First lets talk about their offensive rebounding because that's what was a huge difference in Game 1. The Bulls have a .340 offensive rebound percentage. The last team to have a rebound percentage that high into the conference finals was the 1998 Chicago Bulls, who had a ORR of .343, and we know what they did.

Offensive rebounding is a far more critical element of the game than some people realize, particularly when you couple it with a great defense. Traditionally teams that are great at offensive rebounding have problems at the other end of the court. 

Now the Heat are a good defensive rebounding team, but they aren't on Chicago's level. You could make an argument that the best four rebounders in the series all are on Chicago with Noah, Boozer, Gibson and Asik all being better than anyone Miami has. That means that at any given time the Bulls are going to have the best two rebounders in the game. 

For all his offensive struggles, Boozer has still been a rebounding machine in the playoffs. When he and Noah are on the court together, they grab a collective 21.2 rebounds per 36 minutes. 

The rebounding isn't just on the offensive end though. The Bulls have grabbed an average of 54.5 percent of all available rebounds on the postseason. Against Miami they got 57.7 percent of the rebounds in Game 1, which is right with the 57 percent they averaged in the regular season.

Miami's problems with Chicago in rebounding go way beyond "boxing out." It comes down to Chicago just being a much better rebounding team. It's a problem amplified by the fact that Miami struggles when they lost the battle for the boards.

Counting the postseason Miami is now 17-21 when they lost the rebounding battle, and it doesn't look like they're going to win it four of the next six games. Chicago won the rebound battle 65 times this season. Since 1985 (as far back as Basketball-Reference's Game Finder goes) the only team to win the battle that many times was the '96 Bulls, and we know what they did.

Based on that you could make the credible argument that this year's Bulls is one of the two most dominant rebounding teams in the last 25 years. The Bulls are not a good rebounding team, they are a great rebounding team. Certainly, "boxing out" might help, but not nearly as much as the Heat need.  

Opponents Field Goal Percentage 

Rebounding can be a relatively meaningless stat or an incredibly meaningful one, depending on what the rest of your team concept is like. For instance, Minnesota was a very good rebounding team this year, and they had the worst record in the NBA. There's a reason it's meaningful for Chicago and not so meaningful for Minnesota.

The Bulls led the NBA in opponent's field goal percentage this year, and also opponent three-point field goal percentage. To understand why, revisit the defense section. The Bulls' entire defensive scheme is to rotate help defense to keep opponents out of the paint, force a bad shot and then get the rebound.

In other words, their goal is to give you one bad shot per possession. It's why steals can be a bad indication of great defense. A missed shot and defensive rebound has the same effect as a turnover. The Bulls combination of opponents' field goal percentage and defensive rebounding is not just impressive, it's historically impressive.

No team has ever had both a better defensive rebound percentage and opponent field goal percentage. In terms of giving up one bad shot and that's it, no one has ever been better than the Bulls. It's why the Bulls win games.

A Few Other Things

There are some other aspects from Game 1 that aren't likely to stay the same. For starters, it's unlikely that the Bulls are going to go 10 for 21 from behind the arc every night. Having said that, it should be kept into perspective that it's not the extreme anomaly that some have painted that out to be. The Bulls have been averaging 7 for 19 from the three-point arc since the All Star Break.

Furthermore, their two-point field goal percentage (.494) was a bit lower than their season average (.501). Even though they might not hit 10 for 21 from the arc again, that doesn't mean that they aren't going to score a lot of points tonight.

Furthermore, bear in mind that there's a reason that the Bulls dominated the offensive glass the way they did and hit 10 for 21 from the three-point line. The Heat were playing to keep Rose from shredding them. They had their backs to the baskets and were stacking the lane.

Using Synergy I went and looked at the 10 makes for the Bulls. Four of them came off of offensive rebounds. On six of them, there were at least four Heat players with a foot in the paint. Only two of them were even remotely challenged.

Regardless of whether they got the threes because they were uncontested or because they came off of tap outs on offensive rebounds, the root cause was the same. The Heat were stacking the lane to keep Rose out of it.  

If they want to keep Chicago from draining threes like it's a hobby, and dominating on the glass, then they need to make adjustments. They need come out and defend the three. They need to play more sideways so that they can be in position to box out when the shots go up.

However in doing those things they open up the paint. The Heat won the battle in the paint 46-38 even though Chicago has been better in the paint than the Heat throughout the regular season. To a large degree it's a matter of the Heat picking their poison. 

The great myth that everyone has managed to convince themselves of is that all you have to do to stop the Bulls is stop Rose. The thing is that they don't technically have anyone else that's an All-Star on the team, but they do have three other players that are All-Star caliber players, whether they are actually recognized as All-Stars or not. 

Boozer actually has been to two All-Star games, so there's one. Noah would have probably gone this year if he hadn't gotten injured. He's emerged as the second best center in the Eastern Conference and arguably the third best in the NBA (and second best when Andrew Bynum's injured, which is the majority of the time). Luol Deng probably was arguably the biggest slight from the All-Star game this year.

The Bulls do have the the talent to beat a team when they're playing to stop Rose from getting into the lane. Miami dared Chicago to beat them with everyone else and Chicago didn't just beat them, they beat the tar out of them.

While it's not realistic to expect the Bulls to go 10 for 21 every night, it's not realistic for the Heat to stop that without changing anything. It's also not likely that by changing things elsewhere, it's not going to have impact in other places.

That means that Derrick Rose, who had a relatively quiet 28 points, would have even more of an impact on the game. In the three previous matchups, about half of Rose's shot attempts came in the paint. In Game 1 only about a quarter of them came in the paint. If the Heat loosen up their defense in the paint in order to defend the perimeter, they are going to open up the paint for Rose to penetrate and beat them that way.

Another aspect of Game 1 that is unlikely to remain the same is the Heat's shooting performance outside of James and Wade. Apart from Wade and James, the Heat shot 20 for 36 from the field, which is pretty effective. Overall they shot 47 percent, which was three percent higher than the 44 percent they shot in their three previous meetings.

Chris Bosh scored 30 points. That's unlikely to change, particularly if Wade and James are going to be getting more involved. His 12-18 night was something of a redemption for his 1-18 night, albeit with the scoreboard not showing it.

In essence, people shouldn't assume that it's just a matter of making a few adjustments so that Chicago can't exploit the same weaknesses. Miami's not the only team that's going to be making adjustments. Miami's not the only team that can improve. Chicago can still do some things better too. 

The reason the Bulls won Game 1 is not that they came up with some great scheme to stop James and Wade. They didn't just get hot from the three, and they didn't just get 19 offensive rebounds because Miami wasn't boxing out.

What needs to be impressed here is that Chicago kept Wade and James out of the paint with their standard, conventional defense.They ran the same defensive scheme they've been running all year.

They were blistering from three-point land because  Miami was playing a gimmick defense to stop Rose, and Chicago made them pay for it. 

They dominated the glass because they've been doing it all season on top of Eric Spoelstra's far below genius level scheme of going small against one of the most dominant rebounding teams in the last 25 years. 

The reasons the Bulls won Game 1 are the same as the reasons they won through the season. They have the MVP in Derrick Rose. They have the Coach of the Year in Tom Thibodeau.

They have a great defense, which is so quick in their rotations, keeps penetration out of the paint, forces bad shots and then gets the rebound. They have so much defensive depth that it's a valid argument that they improve defensively when their bench is on the floor.

In fact, you can compose a team from Chicago where all the players on the court received votes for the All-Defense team. That's how good the Bulls are defensively. 

On offense they have multiple players who can score, a point guard who can set them all up in a variety of ways, and great rebounders who can scrap up the misses and put them back in.

Miami can make adjustments, but they can't adjust to Chicago. They are going to have to beat the better team to make it to the finals and it's just hard to see how they're going to do it. It's hard to see how Miami can break down the Chicago defense four times. It's hard to see how they're going to stop Chicago's rebounding four times. It's even harder to see how Miami is going to win four times in six games without doing either. 

It's easy to dismiss Game 1 as just Game 1 and assume that Game 2 is going to be different, and it might be. It's perhaps a bit too easy. The fact is that as surprising as the margin by which Chicago won in Game 1, there wasn't anything surprising about the manner in which they won.

It was entirely consistent with what Chicago has been doing to win all year, and it's entirely consistent with what Miami hasn't done when they've lost all season. There's nothing there that's going to change, and it's why the Chicago Bulls will win this series.