I had to reflect on the game tonight for quite awhile. There was a lot to take in tonight. What was clear though, is we were treated to probably the best game of the entire NBA season. Unfortunately we came up short tonight, partly of our own doing, partly because we were playing against the best scorer in the NBA. But tonight was a special game to get to see.

The game fell into a marquee battle between Ben Gordon and Dwyane Wade. Ben Gordon was just amazing tonight. He scored the Bulls last 15 points of regulation, and making 5 three pointers in the fourth quarter to rally the Bulls back from 14 down to tie the game and bring it into overtime.

With the Bulls up by 2, Ben Gordon gets to the free throw line and missed the first free throw. He made the second, to put the Bulls up three. This is probably Gordon’s first clutch free throw miss of his career, and this one definitely hurt. If he made the free throws, the Bulls would have won in regulation, simple as that. You have to make your free throws in the clutch.

Following Gordon’s misses from the line, Dwyane Wade sank a nice three point shot over John Salmons to tie the game 104 to 104.

The end of regulation was disappointing in my opinion. The ball should have been in Gordon’s hands. Derrick Rose has proven that he can’t hit the big shot at the end of games. Same thing unfolded tonight, Rose drove to the basket, put up a bad shot and missed.

It looked like the Bulls were going to lose in the first overtime, being down 117 to 112 after Beasley put in a pair of free throws with 32 seconds left. But Gordon found his stroke again, putting in a 3 to make it a 2 point game. Dwyane Wade then missed a pair of free throws to give the Bulls another shot. John Salmons was fouled in the paint and made both free throws to tie the game at 117. Dwyane Wade on the other end missed a reverse layup. Salmons bothered Wade enough to make it into a layup attempt instead of a dunk, but it was still a very good look, and Wade should have made that. Just a completely blown defensive play, but they got lucky, and the game went into double overtime.

With the Bulls down 125 to 123, Tyrus Thomas had a big block against Udonis Haslem to get the Bulls a crucial stop. Then on the other end, after Rose missed a layup, Thomas grabbed the ball for a putback slam to make it a 125 to 125 tied ball game. Wade then made a layup, and Salmons responded with a jumper to tie the game at 127. The Bulls then got the stop as Haslem missed a jumpshot and Rose rebounded.

The Bulls were now in a great position, they were either going to win the game or bring it into overtime. But with just 3 seconds left Wade stole the ball from Salmons, drove down court, and put in a floating three at the buzzer to give the Heat the 130 to 127 victory.

The ball should have been in Gordon’s hands at the end too. John Salmons was the only person they were really able to get the ball into, so he just ran with it. It didn’t look like Vinny Del Negro drew up any type of play here. It seemed like whoever caught it got to decide what they were doing. The Bulls should have put the ball in Gordon’s hands and let him create a shot for himself. He has proven time and time again that he is great at hitting the big shots, so there is no use denying his gifts.

In the end, Dwyane Wade finished with an astonishing 47 points, 12 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 steals, and 3 blocks. This was just an all around great game from Wade. He scored a lot, hit the big shots, set up his teammates, and played tough defense.

Ben Gordon was great as well, finishing with 43 points, whilst going 8-11 from three point land. He helped himself in a big way tonight in his record pursuit. He is now just 15 three pointers away from setting the record for the most three point shots made by a player in the first five years of their career.

John Salmons was just solid tonight, scoring 29 points, but on 24 field goal attempts. He has to score at a high efficiency. But the good thing is that Salmons hit some big shots in the overtime periods, so he was playing well when it really mattered.

Derrick Rose had another bad game. He had 23 points, but took 25 shots to get that. He only had 3 assists. Rose is a point guard, and he needs to start playing like one. That means setting up his teammates to score. When he drives to the basket, it’s almost always about Rose scoring. It’s never about playing some kick and drive offense. He should have been taking notes of Dwyane Wade tonight. Wade would get into the lane, and then kick it out to his teammates, getting them some easy scores.

The Bulls big men were okay. Joakim Noah had 11 points and 15 rebounds. I thought he had a valiant effort tonight and played well. Brad Miller had 9 points and 10 rebounds. He had too many defensive lapses tonight, giving the Heat easy scores at the basket. Tyrus Thomas was checked out mentally for most of the game, culminating in a technical foul in the third quarter. Thomas did end up redeeming himself a bit with two big plays in the second overtime after Noah fouled out.

Michael Beasley had 18 points and 7 rebounds off the bench and the Heat’s other record, Mario Chalmers, had 17 points and 5 assists.

Jermaine O’neal had 11 points, Jamario Moon 13 points, and Udonis Haslem 10 points.

The Bulls only played 7 players today, as Luol Deng and Tim Thomas were out with injuries, and Vinny doesn’t seem to trust the rest of his players. This is actually a pretty good thing, because our first 7 players are really, really good, while the bench players aren’t very good at all.

Overall, tonight was a good effort. Vinny actually made some good in game coaching decisions, such as the inbounds play that netted Salmons a dunk and one. But he also made some coaching blunders, such as not drawing up a play for Gordon at the end. This loss isn’t going to sink our season, but losing a bunch of close one’s like this really hurts your team. This team is probably closer than a lot of people think. Right now, for the Bulls, they just have a big problem with finishing really close games. They have lost a bunch of close ones this year, that easily could have been won if Vinny used a better end of game strategy, such as getting the ball to Ben Gordon.

With the loss, the Bulls fall to 29-35 on the season. The Bulls are now tied with Milwaukee for the eigth seed again. The Bulls of course have the tiebreaker as they defeated the Bulls 3-1 in the season series.

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Tags: Ben Gordon, Brad Miller, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, epic game, Game Winner, Jamario Moon, Jermaine O'neal, Joakim Noah, John Salmons, Mario Chalmers, overtime, Tyrus Thomas, Udonis Haslem, Vinny Del Negro

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 11:17 pm and is filed under Game Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.