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Chicago Bulls' formula for more success in Boston isn't complicated

Not that long ago, the Chicago Bulls had a magical run of consecutive playoff victories on the home court of the top-seeded team in the Eastern Conference.

Plenty has changed in the past seven days.

Rajon Rondo was sidelined by a broken right thumb. Boston changed its starting lineup and rolled to 2 victories at the United Center. Now the Bulls will try to find their old form when the series shifts back to the TD Garden for Wednesday's Game 5.

Rondo has increased his activity but is not expected to be available. Backup point guard Isaiah Canaan is set to get his first start of the entire season.

Considering the Bulls are a No. 8 seed going against No. 1, a 2-2 tie after four games seemed like a great option before this series began.

"I think (our confidence) is still high," Jimmy Butler said. "Y'all didn't pick us to win, so we've got nothing to lose. We want to get back to playing some really good basketball, and I think we'll be OK. Smile, go have fun, play hard and see where we end up."

Losing Rondo hurt, but there are some basic things the Bulls can do better to get back in the win column before this first-round series ends. Here's a checklist:

Start faster

The Celtics have jumped to an early lead in all four contests. They led 12-6 in Game 1 and 7-0 in Game 2, feeding off the energy of their home crowd. Both times the Bulls stopped the bleeding quickly. In fact, they never trailed by more than 7 points during the two games in Boston.

At the United Center, the Bulls fell behind, floundered around and didn't gain any traction until the Celtics' lead reached 20. The Bulls rallied in both home games but ran out of gas.

Obviously, Goal No. 1 is to not fall behind by 20, or even double digits, in Game 5.

"You've got to go out and have great activity, especially on the road," coach Fred Hoiberg said. "You've got to fight through adversity, because we're going to hit it on Wednesday night."

Hit some 3-pointers

The Bulls can talk all they want about needing Rondo to facilitate the offense or getting better ball movement. The offense would look much better if they could just hit a few 3-pointers.

Outside shooting was a significant part of the Bulls' late-season surge, but they've dropped to 30.2 percent from 3-point range during this series.

Nikola Mirotic is the biggest culprit, going 7-for-26 (26.9 percent), but Butler is just 4-for-17.

There are some guys on the team shooting well, so maybe those players should get more attempts. Bobby Portis is 4 of 8 from behind the arc, Dwyane Wade 4 of 9 and Paul Zipser 4 of 11. Canaan made 3 of 7 in Game 4.

"We're 7 of 31 for the series in corner 3s," Hoiberg said. "Those are good looks, what we need to look to manufacture in our offense. We need to step up with confidence and knock shots down. That would help."

Keep Lopez involved

Center Robin Lopez was brilliant in Boston, averaging 16 points and 9.5 rebounds. The Celtics made a simple adjustment for Game 3, starting athletic forward Gerald Green and benching Amir Johnson, who had contributed next to nothing.

Green is a career underachiever, and the Bulls seemed content to let him shoot. But Green delivered, hitting 6 of 12 shots from 3-point range in the two games at the United Center.

The switch forces Lopez to guard Al Horford instead of the slower Johnson, and Lopez played just 21 and 22 minutes in the last two games. He was still fairly efficient, though, so maybe it's worth leaving him on the floor, even when the Celtics use a smaller lineup.

Keep it balanced

Obviously, Butler is the main guy for the Bulls, but asking him to do it all probably isn't the formula for victory. The Bulls' best performance came in Game 2, when Butler and Wade scored 22 points each.

Efficiency on offense is probably the greatest need. The Bulls had chances late in Game 4, but some mistakes on offense led to easy Boston baskets, such as Butler getting blocked by Kelly Olynyk or Wade throwing a fastbreak lob toward Butler that had no chance to connect.

Giving Butler some help is a better scenario than asking him to do more.

• Get the latest Bulls news via Twitter @McGrawDHBulls.

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