It seems that most of the post season, we've been hearing a lot on the play of Carlos Boozer, or rather the lack thereof. Game 6 finally gave newly suffering Carlos Boozer haters a reason to be quiet...23 points (10-16 shooting), 10 rebounds and 5 assists in 35 minutes of play.
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)Boozer would open up the 1st quarter with 9 points (4-4 shooting) with 3 rebounds and an assist. In fact, the Bulls ball movement was so crisp, and the Hawks defense was a step slow early on. On defense, the Hawks didn't get many clean looks, nor did they do a great job of looking for points in the paint. In the end, here's what we saw for shots at the rim:Atlanta: 9-18
Chicago: 17-22 ...and the stat that killed them in their losses:Atlanta,
from 16-23 feet: 8-25 (Horford: 1-7)
from 3 pt: 1-11 (Smith: 0-3, Crawford: 0-3)The Hawks would struggle to score more than 18 in any of the first 3 quarters, and outside of a 10-3 to end the 1st half, were done in the 2nd half.
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)What did we learn from the series? We learned that
- A hot shooting team can beat them at home (Game 1)
- When needed, their MVP Derrick Rose can cut the heart out of an opposing team on the road (Game 3)
- Their defensive bench (Gibson, Asik, Brewer), can shutdown and lockdown a team in the 4th quarter (Game 5)* Also learned that Jeff Teague was a pretty savvy player. Not particularly as dominant as his stats showed, but impressive as a player that made the right plays when the Bulls defense allowed them. (Which, in most cases was getting free reign into the paint from the baseline.) Well, here we are. At the beginning of the season, it would have been quite a feat to get into the Conference Finals given the injury to Boozer and Boston, Miami and Orlando looked on paper. Instead, the Bulls are staring at a pretty confident Miami team in the way of a spot in the NBA Finals. More on that in the next post.8 to go! Hoopdata box score:
http://www.hoopdata.com/boxscore.aspx?id=310512001PopcornMachine game flow:
http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20110512&game=CHIATLPopcornMachine box score:
http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/boxscore.cgi?date=20110512&game=CHIATL
Chicago: 17-22 ...and the stat that killed them in their losses:Atlanta,
from 16-23 feet: 8-25 (Horford: 1-7)
from 3 pt: 1-11 (Smith: 0-3, Crawford: 0-3)The Hawks would struggle to score more than 18 in any of the first 3 quarters, and outside of a 10-3 to end the 1st half, were done in the 2nd half.
- A hot shooting team can beat them at home (Game 1)
- When needed, their MVP Derrick Rose can cut the heart out of an opposing team on the road (Game 3)
- Their defensive bench (Gibson, Asik, Brewer), can shutdown and lockdown a team in the 4th quarter (Game 5)* Also learned that Jeff Teague was a pretty savvy player. Not particularly as dominant as his stats showed, but impressive as a player that made the right plays when the Bulls defense allowed them. (Which, in most cases was getting free reign into the paint from the baseline.) Well, here we are. At the beginning of the season, it would have been quite a feat to get into the Conference Finals given the injury to Boozer and Boston, Miami and Orlando looked on paper. Instead, the Bulls are staring at a pretty confident Miami team in the way of a spot in the NBA Finals. More on that in the next post.8 to go! Hoopdata box score:
http://www.hoopdata.com/boxscore.aspx?id=310512001PopcornMachine game flow:
http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20110512&game=CHIATLPopcornMachine box score:
http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/boxscore.cgi?date=20110512&game=CHIATL