After two games in Chicago, the Bulls and Cavaliers are matched at 2-2 in their best of seven series. After a dramatic last second bank-shot three pointer from Derrick Rose gave the Bulls the win in Game 3, Cleveland rescued themselves in a sloppy Game 4 thanks to a last second long two-pointer from Lebron James.
After the series opened in Cleveland, not much had been decided by the titans of the Central Division. As the series shifted back to Chicago there were a lot of questions that both teams needed to answer and plenty of room for improvement.
Now, two more games in the books, many questions still remain unanswered and a lot of poor play from both teams was masked by each team’s biggest star taking turns being hero.
Game 3 of this series seemed like a major shift from the previous games in Cleveland, the Cavaliers continued to work ISO out of their system. Heading into Game 4, the Cavs were only running ISO on 10 percent of their possessions. For the Bulls, coach Tom Thibodeau seemed like a changed man, running eight (EIGHT!) players for more than 20 minutes. Aaron Brooks was the only player to take the court for fewer than 20 minutes.
Along with the minutes rotations, Thibodeau also gave promising rookie Nikola Mirotic a full 21 minutes after putting him on the court for just nine minutes in the first two games of the series combined. Mirotic scored 12 points, grabbed two rebounds and swiped two steals to go with an astonishing +19 on the night.
But the hero of the day was definitely Chicago’s own son, Derrick Rose. The second half of Game 3 was the Rose and Butler show, the two players combining to score 41of the Bulls 52 points. Rose scored 14 points in the 4th quarter alone and he finally started getting to the line, going 9-for-10 on free throws.
The Bulls also showed a lot of their depth as Noah spent a considerable amount of time on the bench and Gasol missed the last 11 minutes of play due to a hamstring issue which would also keep him out of Game 4.
What did the Cavaliers bring to the table? Not what they needed to. Probably two of the most mentioned stats for Cleveland coming out of Game 3 were Kyrie Irving getting zero assists and Lebron James committing 7 turnovers, the same number of turnovers as the entire Bulls roster. James (8-for-25) and Irving (3-for-13) also struggled from the field, while Irving only had two free throw attempts for the game.
The Cavs bench is not deep, due to injuries and fossils-on-exhibit like Kendrick Perkins, but they stayed in the game thanks to major contributions from their bench players J.R. Smith, Matthew Dellavedova, and James Jones. Those three players combined to shoot 8-for-16 from three-point range, snag six rebounds and five assists, but only committed one turnover. Tristan Thompson also continues to be a revelation for Cleveland coach David Blatt, proving to be a terror on the Bulls interior, capable of snagging rebounds at a high rate, particularly extending possessions by grabbing four offensive rebounds in Game 3. In particular, the Thompson/Mozgov pairing has proved difficult for the Bulls.
The dramatic result for the Bulls in Game 3 couldn’t be topped, but it was definitely matched by Lebron James in Game 4. James again had a rough night, shooting 10-for-30 (1-for-7 from three-point range) and again committing the same number of turnovers, eight, as the entire Chicago roster. Despite his turnover issues and trouble finding it from range, he hit the most important shot of the game with less than one second left to send the series back to Cleveland tied 2-2.
Game 4 was a hot mess; both teams went on excessive cold streaks. I stopped counting the consecutive misses for the Bulls in the 2nd quarter at 13. During that time Cleveland went on a 16-0 run, going from down 37-29 to up 45-37. It didn’t look good for Chicago going toward half-time, but thanks to an equally awful 3rd quarter from Cavaliers, the Bulls surged back to take a double-digit lead toward the end of the quarter.
Chicago didn’t seem satisfied with the lead, so they decided to let Cleveland go on yet another run to take the lead, which they extended to six in the closing minutes thanks to numerous missed layups, putbacks, and three-point attempts from the Bulls. Improbably, the Bulls suddenly found offense again and put themselves back in the game, largely thanks to somehow getting three offensive fouls called on Lebron. But, after vetoing David Blatt’s inbound call, Lebron shook loose of Butler just long enough to put up an uncontested long two-point shot from the corner to end the game and even the series.
In the win, Cleveland shot 38.7 percent, Chicago only 36.0. That is really bad. Lebron’s 10-for-30 wasn’t even one of the worst performances of the night, the Bulls combination of Taj Gibson (2-for-7), Mike Dunleavy (1-for-7), Joakim Noah (4-for-12), and Nikola Mirotic (1-for-9) were truly bad. And the Cavs, wishing not to be outdone, had Kyrie Irving (2-for-10) and Iman Shumpert (1-for-8) gunning and missing.
If we look beyond the terrible streaks, bad referee decisions in both directions, and questionable coaching calls, this game probably was turned on the 4th quarter performance of J.R. Smith. One can only assume that he spent a lot of time listening to E-Town Concrete’s “Time 2 Shyne” album at half-time because Smith came up huge in the final quarter of play, hitting three shots from deep, netting a total of 11 points in a stretch of less than five minutes during the Cavs run from down 68-61, to up 76-73. If not for his clutch shooting and a cold Bulls squad, Lebron wouldn’t have been in a position to save the day.
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