Bulls snap out of it, win going away
They say you can't just flip a switch and start playing well in the playoffs.
Well, the Bulls found a way to push the right buttons at halftime of Thursday night's game at Miami.
The Bulls trailed by 19 points at halftime after a miserable second quarter that saw them shoot 3-for-24 from the field.
But there still was time to turn things around, and the Bulls started the third quarter with a 39-8 run. They held the Heat to just 27 points after halftime and won going away 89-78.
"We were getting out-competed," Joakim Noah said after the game, according to bulls.com. "Our identity for years was our intensity and our defense. It wasn't there in the first half, was in the second. Nazr (Mohammed) gave us a great halftime speech about playing for the right reasons."
Derrick Rose played for the second time since coming back from arthroscopic knee surgery and remains a work in progress. He scored 12 points against Miami, hitting 5 of 15 shots from the field, with 4 rebounds, 3 turnovers and 2 assists.
Just like a night earlier in Orlando, Rose played about 20 minutes and did not see action in the fourth quarter. He was on the floor for much of the miserable second quarter but also played in the third when the Bulls turned things around.
"(Coach Tom Thibodeau) was pretty calm (at halftime)," Rose said. "We knew what we had to do going back into the game,"
Pau Gasol led the Bulls (47-32) with 16 points and 15 rebounds. Taj Gibson and Aaron Brooks scored 14 each, while Mike Dunleavy had 12 points.
The Bulls went back to a short-handed state Thursday. Jimmy Butler was a late scratch with a calf injury; his return is unknown. The Bulls have three games left in the regular season before the playoffs start next weekend. Butler is the team's leading scorer at 20.1 points per game.
Even without Butler, one of their best defenders, the Bulls were able to shut down the Heat in the second half. Dwyane Wade finished the night hitting 4 of 20 shots for 9 points, while ex-Bull Luol Deng went 3-for-13 for 8 points.
The victory moved the Bulls back into third place in the East, a half-game ahead of Toronto. The Raptors will make the same Orlando-Miami back-to-back trip over the next two days, while the Bulls return home to face Philadelphia on Saturday.
The Bulls are 1½ games ahead of fifth-place Washington. They would lose tiebreakers to both the Raptors and the Wizards. The Bulls' final two games of the regular season are Monday at Brooklyn and Wednesday against Atlanta at the United Center.
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