warriors vs bulls recap (Photo: via @letsgowarriors Instagram)
UNITED CENTER, CHICAGO, IL — Well, that was a clunker. The Chicago Bulls absolutely dominated the Golden State Warriors from the second through fourth quarters in an ugly brickfest in which both teams shot miserably.
We’ve been chided before for having low-quality images for our articles, but we think this one, another low-res offering, says it best. First, the sort of surreal, unfocused look speaks to how it seemed the Warriors were in a daze for most of this game.
Second, and more telling, the body language of the Warriors. Despite Stephen Curry explaining to LetsGoWarriors at the All-Star Game that he needed to do a better job of being more vocal as a leader in such dire situations, you can see his head hanging in this very photo.
Then again, it was only the second clunker of the year for the team. Or fourth, depending on how you look at it:
@LetsGoWarriors Not this bad, Charlotte beat them but Dubs still had chances to win and Phoenix is a good team…Chicago never let them in
— Tim Roye (@warriorsvox) February 27, 2014
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PRE-GAME
At least there were a few bright spots (mostly unrelated to the game, of course). First off, it happened to be the birthday of the newly acquired Steve Blake, who spoke highly of his teammates on KNBR. Festus Ezeli and Nemanja Nedovic sang Happy Birthday, or at least they tried. They might have done better just doing a #LetsGoWarriors chant.
IN-GAME
The game started out slowly, as the Warriors missed the scoring punch of David Lee, who did not start. It was just Warriors 10, Bulls 10, with 5:54 remaining in the first quarter. By the end of the first, the Warriors led 24-21, holding Chicago to a mere 25% shooting on 5-for-20 from the field.
By 5:27 remaining in the second quarter, #DubNation started to get frustrated. The Bulls had begun to stretch the lead to 40-32. By halftime, it was 56-45. No Warriors were in double-figures and Chicago led 13-2 in points off turnovers.
With 5:52 to go in the third quarter, the Bulls were up by 15, 66-51 and were displaying the aforementioned bad body language. In a nutshell, what the Bulls did with their schemes to the #BabyFaceKilla (Curry, btw) was equivalent to what their mascot Benny The Bull had done to a poor innocent bystanding kid wearing Curry’s jersey.
By the end of the third, it was all Bulls, 80-59. We found a nice close-up of the game that made you feel closer, but then again all Warriors fans could think about was to get out of the Windy City and onto MSG to face the New York Knicks.
The final score was an abhorred 103-83. All of the Warriors starters were held to single-digits scoring. The last time all five Warrior starters were held to that, the starting lineup featured:
Tell me you looked that up! RT @nujash10: @LetsGoWarriors @gswstats John Starks, Jason Caffey, Erick Dampier, Chris Mills ,Muggsy Bogues
— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) February 27, 2014
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Afterwards on Twitter, the @LetsGoWarriors account played its usual psychiatric therapist role and addressed the concerns of fans that ranged from “Ah well, second clunker of the year” to “Yeah, we should worry, the playoffs are in danger and we can’t be playing like this (at all)”.
However, the game was probably best summarized by the fact that the Bulls were smarting over their previous embarrassment at #Roaracle, as well as a game-plan specifically devised to thwart Curry, exacerbated by the fact that ever-mobile Joakim Noah was the perfect big man to execute that strategy — even further exacerbated by the fact that the Warriors passed him up in the Draft, but we won’t go there this time — and finally, yet further exacerbated by the fact that Lee, such a defense-buster, played sparingly as he was recovering from a three-day dehydrating, hospital-staying-at bout with the stomach flu.
Whew!
Jermaine O’Neal addressed some of these issues post-game:
How surprising was this loss:
.
“It is never surprising. In this league you either come to play or you get beat. The average fan, the average writer or sports analyst don’t understand that in this league it is filled with great athletes and a lot of professionals. If you don’t come out and play to the same level, you are going to get beat. We failed in many aspects tonight.”
.
Do you think it was in the back of their mind that they lost in Golden State after being up?:
.
“You could say that. I don’t know what their mindset was but I’m sure it was somewhere in there. For us it is about playing solid basketball every single night. When we get away from playing our basketball and turn over the ball, we don’t give ourselves an opportunity to win.”
Where’s the nearest trash can? On to the next one.
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