Bulls +165 series.... is there something I am missing?

[daimoshokage]

Heat in 6 baby!

[suicidekings]

Lebron guarding Rose sounds like a great way to put bron bron in foul trouble to me. Not to mention putting bibby on korver out at the 3? Thats a recipe for disaster.

Leave Rose to bibby. Let him get his layups except when bosh or Z can come over for the block, but put a lot of defensive pressure on the rest of the bulls, especially noah because he is going to beat the shit out of big Z. Dude is a monster this year.

Personally I think this series will be closer than people think. Scary because I think the bulls are only at like 45 mil in salary this year.

Miami won't win the series if they focus too much on Rose to the point where they don't give the other shooters the respect they deserve. I'm actually hoping that the Heat really come after Rose in the first game with doubleteams because it will demonstrate the wrong mindset from the Heat.

[FindTheLock]

And by effectively guarding him what do you mean exactly? Cut him down to 20ppg? How about assists?

The Bulls had more points in the paint in all three meetings this season (avg margin = 5+ PITP)

Bibby will not play much in this series.

fill in bibby with any random player that isn't bosh james or wade then. I know the regular season stats are what people use to assess the match ups for the playoffs, but let's be honest. The regular season in the NBA is an extended pre-season that means very little other than deciding home court advantage. There are no back to backs in the post season so everyone will be rested on both sides in every game. which means teams get the best of the other team every night. No one is going to shut rose down completely I agree with you on that note. He is an excellent player that I have a ton of respect for, and have felt he was awesome since his days at memphis. That being said The pacers were giving the Bulls fits with their young inexperienced untested unit. I expect the seasoned heat power triangle to lock it down defensively and get to the paint on the offensive end. In my opinion If the bulls are going to win this series they are going to have to make the heat players shoot jumpers. that's a tall order when you're talking about defending two of the best players/slashers in the NBA on the same team.

[NBA_Brosuf]

How does it make sense to take the Heat's offensive output from one series and say that they'll produce in similar fashion against an entirely different team?

So the logic is that since you are moving up the ladder, it should get harder and harder so a 97+ scoring is unachievable for them heats?

Don't matter who you play. If you are good, you are just good. Heat beat boston because they were able to deliver a 97+ points game. Bulls lost 2 games when they were out beaten with a 100+ scores.

The key to beating them bulls is to outscore them. How do you explain the mighty bulls and not having a 100+ points in the ATL series? Is ATL that good of a team that your high ranking squad can not put out a 100+ points?

Different series, different situation yes but someone is still over-rated.

[Bradyd]

I think you're undervaluing the abilities of the other Bulls players. Yes, Rose is the primary scorer and distributor for the Bulls. The Heat are capable of pressuring him and cutting down on his offensive output but look at the Bulls games this season where Rose had tough defenders on him. His assist ratio goes up and the games tend to be lower scoring defensive battles. The Bulls can win by scoring 100 or by scoring 80. We saw the Bulls running offense through Noah much more in Games 5 & 6 as the Hawks really started to pressure Rose with the doubleteams, trapping him. If anything, the Bulls are more capable when teams make the mistake of putting too much emphasis on Rose and not respecting the rest of the scorers. No one is really going to impact Rose significantly in one on one coverage, so the double team is really necessary to stop him. As soon as you do that, it opens up Deng/Boozer/Korver/Bogans (depending on the situation) to get clean looks. If those guys were not all accomplished catch-and-shoot guys then the Bulls would be a lot more vulnerable, but just because Rose is the primary playmaker, don't assume that the Heat can win by containing him.

The Heat are also going to have troubles on the offensive glass. They overpowered the Celtics in rebounding, but the Bulls are very good at it and can minimize the second chance points on the defensive end and will always have offensive rebounds themselves. The Heat are weak in the paint and that's why they were 0-3 against the Bulls this season.

Im not undervaluing the rest of the team, what I'm saying is if you take Rose, the backbone of the bulls and make him sloppy and inefficient than their chances of beating Miami in this series is very slim. They may luck up and win 1 game, but banking on role players to make up for Rose won't have a very high success rate against the Heat. I don't know how anyone think Rose can play below average this series and it still gets the Bulls to the finals.. In fact, they wouldn't have gotten past Atlanta without Rose being superhuman..

Of course there will be some intangibles for each team to address. Rebounding, team defense, shooting, etc... But it all runs through those superstars I mentioned before.

[suicidekings]

Im not undervaluing the rest of the team, what I'm saying is if you take Rose, the backbone of the bulls and make him sloppy and inefficient than their chances of beating Miami in this series is very slim. They may luck up and win 1 game, but banking on role players to make up for Rose won't have a very high success rate against the Heat. I don't know how anyone think Rose can play below average this series and it still gets the Bulls to the finals.. In fact, they wouldn't have gotten past Atlanta without Rose being superhuman..

Of course there will be some intangibles for each team to address. Rebounding, team defense, shooting, etc... But it all runs through those superstars I mentioned before.

Intangibles? How are any of these things not quantifiable?...

Rose does two things. Score and distribute. I can buy the Miami defense cutting down on his points by contesting his shots and trying to wall off the paint so he can't reach the rim, but it's substantially more difficult for them to address his passing. Regardless of who is guarding him, he only needs to drive and kick and he's going to find shooters. He doesn't need to penetrate deep into the paint to accomplish this and his first step is fast enough that he can almost always pull close enough for the running J or at the very least draw the help defense. I would bet that points-under and assists-over would be strong plays in Game 1.

I think the assumption that Miami defense is going to make Rose "sloppy and inefficient", then you haven't really watched the Bulls operate against tough defensive teams.

[Bradyd]

Intangibles? How are any of these things not quantifiable?...

Rose does two things. Score and distribute. I can buy the Miami defense cutting down on his points by contesting his shots and trying to wall off the paint so he can't reach the rim, but it's substantially more difficult for them to address his passing. Regardless of who is guarding him, he only needs to drive and kick and he's going to find shooters. He doesn't need to penetrate deep into the paint to accomplish this and his first step is fast enough that he can almost always pull close enough for the running J or at the very least draw the help defense. I would bet that points-under and assists-over would be strong plays in Game 1.

I think the assumption that Miami defense is going to make Rose "sloppy and inefficient", then you haven't really watched the Bulls operate against tough defensive teams.

I don't how this got into a discussion on what I think Miami will do in this series. All I stated was 3 stars were harder to contain than 1. And that Chicago relies on Rose heavily and it shows. I didn't say it was going to be easy, I just said it would severely ruin Chicago's chances. Most of this back and forth we are doing is hypothetical, not a blueprint for what will happen.
To clear this matter up, I will just state what I have been stating all along:

A sloppy and inefficient Rose will all but destroy Chicago's chances of getting to the finals. And sloppy and inefficiency from the big 3 will not help Miami's chances either.... However containing Rose is a lot more easier than containing the combination of Wade/Lebron/Bosh..

[lunchbawks]

Chicago owned the HEAT all season

BUTT!!!!!


So did the Celtics, and they got destroyed.

[antifoil]

the only logic you need to take the bulls at plus money, is that the bulls are favored by 1.5 tonight, which is a average margin of victory if these teams play over 1000 games, so it reasons that the bulls will be favored in all of their home (4) games. they should be favored in the series because of this alone so there is monster value on the bulls in the series.

[SportsPedagogy]

The Bulls have a much deeper bench. If the heat need to rely on their Big 2.5 (Bosh is overrated) then they are going to tire. Noah will get into Bosh head, Bogans will not stop James, but limit him. Should be a good series. I like the bulls.

[d2bets]

in my opinion the only team that has a chance of stopping the heat at this point in the season is the mavericks. Mavericks have a full team and a deep bench. The bulls are a good team, but they have shown many signs of weaknesses throughout the playoffs thus far. I didn't think the celtics would get punked like they did by miami, and before seeing the games played during the playoffs to this point, I would've taken the bulls to win against the heaters hands down, however, now that I've had the pleasure of watching all of the teams play I think the Heat will roll the bulls and possibly even the mavericks in the finals. I don't like Lebron, but the guy is ridiculously talented and the Miami defense isn't going to give anybody any layups. Rose won't be able to finish at the rim when he plays this "playoff heat squad." We shall see, but damn the heat looked like monsters closing out the celtics like they did. The Bulls struggled in every game but one against the pacers. It's Just a sport of match ups and I don't think the bulls will be able to guard Miami very well, but I don't think the Heat will have the same problems when they're on defense.

Why won't Rose finish at thew rim. Personally I think he'll have an easier time of that than against Indy or Atlanta. They both had real good length and shot blockers at the rim. Not impressed with Joel Anthony.

[FindTheLock]

Why won't Rose finish at thew rim. Personally I think he'll have an easier time of that than against Indy or Atlanta. They both had real good length and shot blockers at the rim. Not impressed with Joel Anthony.

I'm not trying to say D rose won't have a lay up in the series, however, I am trying to say it is much more difficult to get to the rim when players like D wade and James are guarding you off the dribble. In most cases D rose will pass the ball or cross over and step back into an off balanced shot rather than drive to the rack for an and 1 with wade or james in front of him. I know for a fact D rose will cross anyone over and get to the rim at some points in the game, but D wade and James' speed and acceleration in tight quarters matches D roses on any given play. Should be interesting to see how the heat choose to guard him.