Wizards accept blame for Noah issue

WASHINGTON - Hours before Game 3 tipped off, Joakim Noah brought some fire to the morning shootaround.

According to witnesses, the shootaround at the Verizon Center was wrapping up when the Wizards security manager started yelling at the Bulls to leave the floor.

Noah was still shooting and replied, "Get the (bleep) out of here. I'm not done," according to the Sun-Times.

The two continued arguing for about a minute, with Bulls assistant general manager Randy Brown and security director Eric Buck trying to calm things down. Noah ended up staying on the court.

"Much to do about nothing," coach Tom Thibodeau said before the game.

Washington coach Randy Wittman accepted some blame on the Wizards.

"Obviously, that got out of hand," he said. "I had no idea, never saw it, just heard. I'm sure it was a misunderstanding. It doesn't need to happen. That's got to be something from our side that shouldn't happen."

Snell shuts down nemesis:

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau showed Friday he's not completely adverse to changing the rotation. Obviously, Mike Dunleavy played more than usual (40 minutes) because he had the hot hand.

One subtle move the Bulls used at the start of the fourth quarter was sending rookie Tony Snell out to defend Wizards point guard Andre Miller. Miller had been abusing D.J. Augustin in the first two games of the series, scoring 18 points in 23 minutes, while hitting 8 of 12 shots.

Miller is 15 years older than Snell, but wisdom can only do so much against long arms. Miller missed both of his fourth-quarter shot attempts and finished with just 2 points overall.

Snell said he knew nothing about this move before the game. "It just happened," he said. "(Thibodeau) told me I had to play Andre Miller and just use my length against him and try to do my best against him. He'd been a matchup problem for us."

Snell had a rookie moment late in the game, when he fouled John Wall in the backcourt and gave up 3 free throws with 3.9 seconds on the clock, which brought Washington within 99-97.

A new Nene:

If it seems as though Nene was never this good when he played in Denver, the numbers back it up. According to The Washington Post, the veteran power forward hit on 22.5 percent of his shots from 16 to 24 feet from 2002-08.

He'd been nearly automatic in this series but hit just 5 of 15 shots Friday before getting ejected for grabbing Jimmy Butler by the head.

"You can't control when you get physical; things get hot," Nene said after the contest. "It's over. The whole team is thinking about Game 4 and stepping up for real in a big series. The intensity is going to be high. Every game is going to be hard."

Rose gets exercise:

Derrick Rose was photographed riding a bike around the District of Columbia on Friday afternoon, which made the rounds on Twitter. Rose was in his usual role of working out before the game, then sitting on the bench in a suit.