There were moments in the second quarter — when at one point the Bulls were 1-of-12 shooting and the Hawks 3-for-13 — when this contest made you want to weep for the game of basketball. The art of shooting felt like it had been set back 50 years.
Then the ending redeemed all that is great about the game. Well, unless you’re a Hawks fan, then it was just frustrating.
Chicago stormed from 19 down in the third quarter to pull out a dramatic 76-74 win — on a game winning basket where Derrick Rose set the pick and was the decoy and Luol Deng slid open for a layup. Watch it for yourself.
First, we must talk about the ugliness. The Chicago Bulls started out just ice cold — there were 8-of-33 at one point in the second quarter with eight turnovers. When you have as many turnovers as baskets, you know things are going poorly. Chicago also started 0-9 from three and like they had against the Heat the night before, the Hawks looked pretty good on defense.
It got so bad the Bulls were booed by the home town faithful.
Which is unfair. In a season with barely any training camp and a condensed schedule that reduces practices we are going to see more of these off nights. We’ve already seen this before multiple times this season, where a team looks brilliant one night and a mess two nights later. Coaches are experimenting with lineups still, players are adjusting and there are inevitably sloppy nights for every team.
What mattered for the Bulls is they fought through it and turned it around.
Rose, who finished with 30, led the way scoring 17 of those in the fourth quarter. The Bulls went on a 20-6 run to start the quarter as they did it with a lineup of Rose, Deng, Taj Gibson, Kyle Korver and Omer Asik. For the whole quarter. Carlos Boozer never saw the floor, nor did Ronnie Brewer, and Joakim Noah came in just for his passing on the final play (which worked out, he got the assist to Deng on the game winner).
For the Hawks, they started to come apart under a combination of tired legs from having to play the Heat and Bulls back-to-back, then getting out of the flow of their offense. When things got tough the Hawks too often resorted to their traditional late game offense Joe Johnson pounding the ball for a while then a pull up jumper. Johnson finished the game with 10 points on 3-of-17 shooting (we told you parts of this game was ugly).
What kept the Hawks in it at the end were rainbow jumpers from Josh Smith — but when he is taking those and not attacking you live with it. Eventually he missed a couple. Meanwhile Rose kept attacking the rim all night.
Which is why the last play worked. Everyone in the building thought Rose would get the ball, so when he was the screener on Deng everyone stayed with him and by the time the pass was made and the Hawks reacted, it was too late.
Bulls win. Ugly, but that’s how good teams win some times. And it can be a lot of fun.
