The Chicago Bulls’ great second half of the season ended Saturday night as they were ousted from the playoffs in Game 7 of their First Round series with the Boston Celtics.

The Bulls looked good early, jumping to a 18-11 lead with about seven minutes left in the first quarter. Gordon came out of the gate looking focused and on fire, scoring 10 points in the first 5 minutes of play. The Bulls would lead 27-23 at the end of one.

The Bulls would open the second quarter opening up a 32-32 lead behind two jumpshots by Ben Gordon. But those were Gordon’s last points of the half, and Boston would jump to a 52-38 lead.

The Bulls would whittle down the Celtic’s lead to 7, as Ben Gordon capped off the third quarter with a three point shot to make it a 78-71 games, but the Celtics never let the Bulls go on a commanding run to completely get back in the ball game.

Kirk Hinrich scored the Bulls first 6 points of the fourth quarter to cut the lead down to four, 81-77, but that was as close as it was going to get. Eddie House promprlty made a three pointer to put the Celtics back up by 7. He was called for a taunting technical, as he felt obligated to say something to the Bulls’ bench. The Celtics never let the Bulls get within 5 from there on out and pulled through with the victory.

Ben Gordon was great given that he had a hamstring injury. The way he went out and scored 17 points early on, I thought he might be getting ready to drop 50 on the Celtics to match Ray Allen, but then Gordon went cold. He still finished with a phenomenal 33 points. He shot only 7-23, but made up for it by going 15-15 from the free throw line. Gordon did a great job getting to the line, and overall, a great game given the hamstring injury.

His UConn counterpart, Ray Allen, also had a good game, scoring 23 points. Like Gordon, Allen did a good job getting to the line, drawing 9 free throw attempts.

Joakim Noah was very good again, finishing with 7 points, 15 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He would foul out of the game. This was Noah’s fourth 15 rebound game of the series. His hard foul on Rondo was great, someone had to send a message to Rondo, and Noah stepped up and did it.

Kirk Hinrich did a good job scoring 16 points off the bench, scoring all but 2 of them in the fourth quarter. He really gave all he could to keep the Bulls from getting eliminated, but it wasn’t enough.

Derrick Rose finished with 18 points and only 3 assists. He started the game off good, and was part of that initial charge, but quickly faded. Next year, he will have to be more aggressive, and have prolonged excellence throughout the game, instead of just in spurts. We have already seen Gordon make the leap from a spurt player to a full game impact player, so hopefully Rose wil lbe able to do the same.

Eddie House was big off the bench, scoring 16 points, going 4-4 from three. In past games, the Celtics weren’t getting production from their bench. Tonight they did, and that was the difference.

The Bulls really god beat up by the Celtics’ big men tonight. Kendrick Perkins had 14 points and 13 rebounds. Glen Davis had 15 points, and even Brian Scalabrine got in the action scoring 8 points.

Paul Pierce scored 20 points for the Celtics. John Salmons had 12 points on 3-12 shooting.

With the victory, the Celtics win the first round series 4-3, advancing to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals where they will take on the Orlando Magic.

Closing Comments

Before the series, I predicted Celtics win the series in 7 games, because we would lose the front court battle, giving up too many second chance points. That is exactly how the Bulls ended up losing this series in 7 games, by getting beat by the Celtics’ depleted front court. Make no mistake about this, Joakim Noah was the best big man in the series. It’s not debatable. But Kendrick Perkins and Glen Davis, throughout the entire series, outplayed Brad Miller and Tyrus Thomas by a wide margin. Tyrus Thomas in particular was a big problem for us in this series, as he got killed on the glass.

It was a pretty good season for the Bulls. They played in one of the most intense playoff series of all time, featuring 7 overtime periods. Hopefully they can take the intensity from this series, while keeping largely the same team, and applying that intensity to the regular season next year, for a much better regular season and an easier playoff matchup.

I usually end by saying “Go Bulls!”, but I will end this season by saying: Re-sign Gordon!

Similar Posts:

• 2009 NBA Playoffs First Round - Game 4: Chicago Bulls 121 vs. Boston Celtics 118 2OT
• 2009 Playoffs First Round - Game 2: Boston Celtics 118 vs. Chicago Bulls 115
• 2009 Playoffs First Round - Game 5: Boston Celtics 106 vs. Chicago Bulls 104 OT
• 2009 Playoffs First Round - Game 6: Chicago Bulls 128 vs. Boston Celtics 127 3OT
• 2009 Playoffs First Round - Game 1: Chicago Bulls 107 at Boston Celtics 105 OT

Tags: 2009 First Round, 2009 Playoffs, Ben Gordon, Boston Celtics, Brian Scalabrine, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Eddie House, First Round, Game 7, Glen Davis, Joakim Noah, Kendrick Perkins, Kirk Hinrich, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 1:30 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.