Let's just get this out of the way, because I find Chicago Bulls fans alarmingly persistant. Seriously, I explained why I didn't comment more on the Bulls-Heat series - I barely saw any of it. And i barely cared. But let's give the Baby Bulls their credit....
They demolished the Heat, just like they did on Opening Day. Whether you attribute that to the Heats' injuries, age, or coaching, they got outplayed completely. The Bulls were faster, quicker, and more aggressive on both defense and offense.
Luol Deng was the star of the series, picking up the slack when Ben Gordon was getting doubled early in the series. The Heat moved away from doubling Gordon, and then he heated up. Hinrich was quiet early in the series, but he had a big finish. The biggest thing we learned is that Deng's midrange game is much tighter than we thought. We underestimated him, but he is a poor man's Rashard Lewis to Ben Gordon (a poor man's Ray Allen). Sh*t, is that the fifth time we've said that? That's what we learned!
Lewis and Allen and Ridnour (yep, Hinrich) had a good run a few years ago, but they didn't have anything beyond the rebounding of Reggie Evans. Ben Wallace may be just as offensively inept as Evans, but his defense and rebounding are superior. And to that a deep rotation - Thomas, Nocioni, Duhon - and it stands that this year's Bulls are a high level 2005 Sonics. They accomplished something they hadn't done since Jordan left, which is make it out of the first round.
Let's have a quick review of what went wrong for the Heat. They couldn't hit a FT, for one. While Ben Wallace went 7-8 in game 4 (hitting 4 out of 4 free throws after being intentionally fouled), Shaq and Zo were 2-14. This follows Wade FT problems in Game 3.
And what next? This is where the Bulls fans will find a reason to hate us. Let's get it right - the Bulls had a 38 FG% in game 4. This was on what the Chicago Sun-Times described as "mostly open shots".
The Pistons won't allow open shots. The Pistons will hit their free throws. The Pistons will play younger than the Heat did. The Pistons will win if the Bulls are only able to hit 38% of their shots.
So hate me if you will, but I think the ride ends here. Maybe not... maybe Detroit gets a major injury. Or a major suspension. Or maybe Deng and Gordon have an even higher level, and torch the Pistons. Maybe Ben Wallace has a terrific series, motivated by playing against his old team, and averages 5 blocks, 3 steals and 17 rebounds per game.
But you know what? We'll beat on the Pistons in this series. We may have gotten some this post, but the reality is that even though the loss to the Nets didn't stop the Bulls from getting out of the first round (as we wrote it would), it will still bite the Bulls, here in the second round. Our predictions for the series will come later, but we will say this: we are picking the Pistons to win.
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I hope the Bulls and Nets make it to the Conference Finals so we can finally make a bet of epic proportions.....I wrote about why the Bulls won their series, and it wasn't because of their offense. Since the Pistons don't have a 'true' center it will allow Ben to roam a little more on D, which like you said, may allow him to have some more blocks, rebounds, etc. Another tidbit for you....The Bulls, or at least Scott Skiles, and the Pistons have some bad blood between them. This may have originated back when the Pistons were whipping the Bulls in Chicago and Rasheed could be seen laughing throughout the entire game and talking smack. It continued when Skiles and Rip got into it one time. Plus, in their last regular season matchup this season Rip and Ty Thomas were ejected and had to be seperated multiple times. I just wrote a post for you, but this could be a war.