How do you know when the kids really grow up? Friday would be a good start for the Bulls.
That’s because the defending NBA champion Miami Heat gave the Bulls everything they had left, including 28 points from Dwyane Wade and 23 points from Shaquille O’Neal.
The Heat took a 12-point lead, found Antoine Walker and James Posey off the bench for double figures and had the home crowd, Ben Gordon in foul trouble and turning the ball over and the all the reasons for an opponent to fold.
But this time the Bulls’ players were stronger.
They moved to the verge of knocking off the defending champions with a 104-96 victory and 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven first-round playoff series. No team in NBA history ever has won a playoff series with that kind of deficit.
Cowboy up?
Not likely for what appears to be a beaten champion.
“Obviously, we’ve dug a deep home for ourselves,” Heat coach Pat Riley said. “This is my take on the whole thing: We can’t be indifferent and, obviously, history says certain things. I’ve been in this position before, and the most important thing is to believe last year there may have been great play.
“Maybe this year the test is the ultimate, ultimate test. Come back Sunday and see if they can close. It’s not easy sometimes to close a series. [Then we can] gain some confidence and go up to Chicago and see if they can close. It’s a simple process now.”
Seemingly so for the Bulls, who got 22 points from Gordon in the second half to offset Wade’s 20 as Gordon, Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich all scored more than 20 points in an impressive comeback.
“After we got the 12-point lead [they] went with that small lineup and Gordon began to get some freedom and room and we could not stop him,” Riley said. “The offense began to bog down. We got off to a bad start in the fourth quarter. They came back. The whole thing started at 72-60 with [an Andres] Nocioni three and they got right back in the game.
“In the second half we didn’t get the same production we got in the first half. I thought Shaq and Dwyane gave us enough. We went through a drought in the fourth quarter, missing jumpers and making costly turnovers. We missed 19 free throws (16 of 35). And we still had a chance to win the game (within three with 1:07 left). Dwyane got us back, two, three points. They didn’t do much with him. We couldn’t do much with them. I have to rethink this thing tomorrow.”
Riley and the Heat rethought all they could.
They started Jason Kapono for extra scoring, they went with James Posey more on Deng for physical play, they lobbed to O’Neal and stayed with him even when he had fouls and Wade removed his protective sleeve. But nobody could find that big S.
The super team was on the other side.
Wade, fighting through a separated shoulder from February, had been wearing a sleeve on his left shoulder and arm throughout the first two games, suggesting weakness. Riley will not have that!
So Wade discarded the sleeve for Game 3 and Miami came out attacking with Jason Williams, piling up fouls on Gordon quickly.
It was essential for Miami to get Williams back into the offense, but when the Heat fell behind midway into the first quarter on Bulls’ hot shooting again, Riley was back up calling the plays and slowing the tempo.
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Miami showed more fight, if not necessarily efficiency, as Wade beat the Bulls to the kind of loose-ball rebound the Bulls owned the first two games midway in the first quarter. But it was with Gordon back in, although at point guard, where the Bulls gave Miami momentum as Gordon was unable to organize the offense, which stalled and fell into turnovers on six consecutive possessions to open the second quarter.
If Miami had been an efficient offensive team, the Bulls would have been in deep trouble. But the Heat was only able to creep ahead. It was the play of Antoine Walker scoring (once appearing to break into an air guitar riff after a finger roll) and Posey on defense against Deng that most disrupted the Bulls and enabled the Heat to take a 52-45 halftime lead. That lead would stretch out, but not far enough.
So now there is only desperate hope left for Miami.
“If any of our players or even myself last year believed one iota of what the press thought about us, we would have lost early,” Riley said before the game. “If we actually believed that, that we’re not that good, not deserving. …
“It really was a testimony to their grit last year. I believe down deep inside in this team and that there’s something there. I believed last year when we got together and got rolling we could be formidable. I’m not going to make excuses. The whole dynamic of this season has been different.”
For the Bulls as well.
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