Will Perdue: Will Perdue: Bulls have to get greedy in Game 2
Q: Everyone is wondering if the Bulls can duplicate their Game 1 effort against Cleveland. What do you think?
A: When the Bulls flew in there on Sunday, they were like, "All right, our goal here is to get one game." Looking at the big picture, you want to take away home court advantage. Now they've done that, but their expectations have changed again. Now you've got to get greedy.
The Bulls had moments in Game 1 where they played really well. I thought they responded to adversity. You saw a lot of things that reminded you why, at the beginning of the year, the Bulls were considered one of the favorites to come out of the East. The Cavaliers don't have Kevin Love. They've still got one more game without J.R. Smith. Now the Bulls have a golden opportunity to go up 2-0. I don't know what the numbers are for teams that come back after losing the first two games of a series at home, but I'm sure it hasn't happened often.
Q: What sort of adjustments should the Bulls make?
A: The first thing that stands out is their defense against Kyrie Irving. Granted, Kyrie hit some incredible shots, but he got to the basket way too easily and that can't happen. I think what you're seeing from Irving right now, it is what you saw from Derrick Rose in 2011 when he was the MVP. That's how much confidence he's playing with. So how do you slow him down? From what we've seen in the regular season and playoffs, Derrick can't do it by himself.
The other thing is at halftime of Game 1, Jimmy Butler told TNT's Rachel Nichols he was exhausted from the amount of energy he used guarding LeBron James. There's no reason to think that's going to change. I'm surprised Tony Snell didn't play in Game 1. One thing the Bulls could do is bring Snell in for Mike Dunleavy and that way, Butler could stay on the floor and be an offensive threat, but Snell could guard LeBron and give Jimmy a little bit of a break on the defensive end.
Q: Missing two starters, the Cavs seemed out of sync in Game 1. Can they fix that in two days?
A: Their rotations were horrible. They were making mistakes all over the floor. You've got to give the Bulls credit because anytime Cleveland made a mistake, they exploited it. It wasn't like the Bulls went through a six-minute spurt and that was it, they did it consistently.
Without two starters, it does affect the rotations, it does affect the trust factor. So with only a day in between, there's a lot of film, a lot of talk. The question is, can Cleveland execute what they discuss, because it's not like they can get out there and practice for an hour live. Now it's about communication and absorbing the necessary information and being able to implement it on the fly. You don't know if they can do that.
Q: What might Cleveland do differently in Game 2?
A: You would think LeBron is going to be a lot more assertive from the get-go. For the Cavs to have a chance without Love, they'll need to get 65-70 points from LeBron and Kyrie. They're not going to get 22 from Iman Shumpert every night.
Don't forget, the Cavaliers were second in the league in 3-point attempts behind Houston. When J.R. Smith comes back, I'm not going to say their offense will be whole, but it will be closer. I think they're going to be a different team in Game 3. That's why I go back to the greed part. The Bulls won the first game, go ahead and win the second game. The Bulls have more weapons and are starting to look like the type of team we thought they could be this season.
• Will Perdue is an analyst for Comcast SportsNet's Bulls pregame and postgame shows. A four-time champion (3 Bulls titles, 1 Spurs), he played 13 seasons in the NBA. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Perdue32.