No. No no noooooooo. Seriously, we had no other reaction to the news about Derrick Rose than that. It really makes us sick to our stomachs. We aren’t Bulls fans. We’re NBA fans, and with the reigning MVP now out for the reason with a torn ACL, everything has changed. The favorites are different, and most importantly, the East is now wide open. Can Boston win two rounds? Yes. Can they break Miami to go to the Finals? They definitely can. Even with Rose leaving late, the Bulls beat Philly 103-91 in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference First Round series. Before he left, the MVP went for 23 points. He was still in there with barely a minute left, and now after crumbling to the floor on a non-contact play, Chicago really doesn’t have a chance at a title. So was it right to have Rose in the game? Tom Thibodeau says so, saying Philly was making a run … Early in the game, Reggie Miller had the gall to call C.J. Watson the Bulls’ MVP this year for the way he held the fort down while Derrick Rose went all Vince Carter on us. Then just as we started to smirk, Watson engineered a quick Chicago spurt that included three straight Sixer turnovers, and a beautiful wraparound pass from Watson to Joakim Noah for a dunk … The Bulls took a 11-point lead into the break in large part thanks to the work Rip Hamilton‘s hologram was putting in. He had 13 in the first half on only six shots, and ended up with 19 … Doug Collins spent the whole first half telling his guys to slow down like Bobby Valentino. Meanwhile Evan Turner didn’t get too welcome of a homecoming. That’s what happens when you tell an entire city we’re not scared of you and you aren’t that good … Who would’ve thought it’d be Big Baby who would leave after Game 1 in Indiana talking junk? Orlando won by four in Game 1, and Davis walked off the court telling the crowd to shut up after contributing 16 points and 13 rebounds. No one may be giving Orlando a chance – especially the Pacers – but if you know anything about Stan Van Gundy, you know he’ll have these guys fighting until the end. They won’t lay down. SVG will make sure they fight … Roy Hibbert should send a gift Dwight Howard‘s way. Without Orlando’s big man in the middle, Hibbert went OFF. After having six blocks in 108 minutes against the Magic during the season, Hibbert had nine of them last night, and nearly became the first player in the playoffs to perform a pts/rebs/blks triple-double since Hakeem with eight points, nine blocks and 13 boards … Keep reading to hear who bailed OKC out…
Kevin Durant said he had been struggling all night with his shot. But with the game on the line and OKC down one, he had to come through. He went to his left, and hit a fading, floating, pull-up shot from about 17 feet away to win it. KD had 25 points on 27 shots but sometimes it’s not the number you hit but the ONES you hit, and the Thunder pulled it out by one against Dallas after KD’s enormous jumper … The Thunder had been down seven with two and a half minutes left, and it took a miracle for them to pull it out. On one hand, you can say they won a game they shouldn’t have, and a game that would’ve eluded them last year. On the other, you can say the Mavs might have their number in the playoffs … So how good are the Thunder? It’ll probably come down to their supporting cast. Check out their box score: besides Durant, Harden, Westbrook and Ibaka, the rest of the team combined to score five points. Serge Ibaka was unreal all night, with 22 points on a dozen shots, and one of his blocks in the closing moments helped steer OKC towards a comeback … On the other side, Jason Terry was an absolute monster in the half-court, just destroying OKC through three quarters with 20 points. The problem was he didn’t register a single point when it really mattered. The JET is known as someone who always comes through late. Last night, he was a ghost in the fourth quarter … The Bulls aren’t the only team losing a player to a knee injury. The Knicks did too. Iman Shumpert left with an ACL tear in his left knee, and honestly we got the feeling like a lot of Knick fans felt worse about that than they did losing in South Beach, 100-67. Can you blame them? LeBron scored 32 in 32 minutes, completely dominating Carmelo Anthony in the “best matchup of the first round.” James was phenomenal, but the 32-2 run he helped spearhead was unlike anything we’ve seen all year … No one on New York played well, but Tyson Chandler was so bad he set a record. Chandler registered the first scoreless seven turnover playoff outing in the last 25 years … As for the offenses, at one point, the Knicks had 47 points on 63 possessions while the Heat had 81 on 65 touches … We’re out like Rose.
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