Bagels wrote:
W_Z wrote:
gotta give some credit to deng though. he played like he wanted it, too.
yes. i was pretty shocked. i thought for certain after lebron blocked his shit that one play, it was over and to me that was a nice summary of deng's play...but then to have him go coast to coast on the next play and throw it down, i almost fell out of my seat.
and totally agree with JasonB's summary above...well said. i think the Bulls did all you could have asked...they played lebron as well as they could (yes i'm aware he had 40)..they took away the drive like you should and forced him to hit outside shots. he hit them. there's nothing else you can do at that point. he was draining contested 3's w/ the shot clock running down, fade away 20 footers with a hand in his face. jamario freaking moon was on fire. at that point you just say ok- we're done. there's no way to defend that. you made them work for it, made them hit tough shots. their role players hit big shots. it's the kind of loss i can at least stomach. they gave it their best and obviously it's not good enough, but we knew that already. they hung in and gave themselves a shot.
Your analysis is spot on. The reason they stayed in this game last night was because of Deng's play. Finally he stepped up and played a pretty solid game. He wasn't settling for the 20 footer like he has been in the past couple weeks. That coast to coast jam was completely shocking to me also. Where has that kind of play been his whole career?
I said before the series began that an important part of this matchup would be how well Kirk shot the ball, and he has shot like dogshit these first two games. Flip Murray stepped up and had a great first half, but just vanished in the 2nd half. Someone on this team needs to knock down some jumpers, but Kirk and Flip are just way too inconsistent. Kirk played great the last week of the season, but he has gone back to his old self.
This may have been one of the best games I have ever seen Joakim Noah play. He put in a new career high, and his hustle was the main reason the Bulls were able to stay in this game.
As for Lebron, there is just nothing you can do to stop that. He caught fire in the 4th quarter and was defended almost perfectly. Now I know how other cities felt when Jordan would do that shit to other teams in the playoffs. Just a completely dominating performance on the offensive end.
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Juice's Lecture Notes wrote:
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