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Bulls Mon Apr 12 2010
As The Bulls Turn: Noah Went "Hero" Yesterday
Derrick Rose had a very, very complete game in a must-win situation for the Chicago Bulls. He dropped 26 on the flailing Torontosaurus Rexes and had four boards, one steal, one block and seven dimes. Rose did the right things on offense: he penetrated, he cut, he passed, he took smart high percentage shots (for the most part). But then there was Noah. The pony tailed, pogo-legged, Noah grabbing every rebound and altering shots on the defensive end and shooting 70% from the field and passing out seven assists on the offensive end. Noah and Rose set a pace and tone throughout the game that forced the rest of the Bulls to follow and ***sports cliche alert*** buy into "refusing to lose." Might I say, it's about time. We all know Vinny Del Negro's attempt at motivation was probably him walking into the Visitor's locker room at Air Canada wearing some Wayfarers and blasting "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman Turner Overdrive on a boombox. Meanwhile, Noah and Rose rolled their eyes and said "Here we go again."
Steadily building a ten-point first half lead, the Bulls came out in the third quarter and --unlike so, so, so many recent games-- dominated the Raptors throughout the third stanza and pushed the lead ever higher into the double digits. This, people, is progress. The Bulls had over the course of the past month (fine, most of the season) been building solid first half leads with sound defense and capable if not fear inducing offense; than when the bell rang for the second half, the squad was falling apart in spectacular fashion. They blew a 30+ point lead at home to Sacramento. They scored 16! points against the New Jersey Nets last Friday for crying out loud. Granted, this being the '09-10 Bulls, they could lose to Boston and Charlotte to close out the regular season and Toronto could cakewalk through the Knicks and Chicago could still miss out on the Playoffs, but for one game at least, the Bulls showed everyone (including themselves) they know how to win a game when they need to.
