Bernstein: A Bulls Playoff Primer
By Dan Bernstein--
NBA players, coaches and broadcasters love to tell you that "playoff basketball is different."
The phrase is ominous, portending a seriousness and gravity absent in, say, the typical December lark when fans are just as interested in the dancing fat guys and the Kiss-Cam, and the biggest roar comes when a seldom-used scrub knocks down the jumper that guarantees the free burgers.
But it's also true. Starting tomorrow, the differences will be clear.
Here are some, and, specifically what they may mean for the Bulls, who are better prepared for them, perhaps, than others.
1. Familiarity with the opponent.
This point is fundamental, affecting the others. By now, teams are known knowns. Until the NBA finals bring a cross-conference meeting, every coach (non Del Negro category) is intuitively aware of every play called and every player running it. The Bulls are used to the availability of volumes of scouting information, so the reports handed to them before each series will not come as a shock, even if there are a few one-liners at the expense of Tom Thibodeau's obsessively-thorough, detailed manuscripts.
2. Physical play.
When you know what the other team's running as soon as the point guard calls it, you can go where you know your guy is going. The bumping and bruising of the playoffs is partly guys playing harder each possession, but it's really a function of familiarity, as the same guys make the same moves in the same places – beat the post scorer to the spot he likes, anticipate the position of the ball-screen and fight through it, jam the routine cuts, etc. The Bulls are ready for this, depending on…
3. Officiating.
Refs are in focus in the postseason, and overly so. All that teams want is for the same calls to be made for both sides, from the first play to the last, whether it's a no-blood-no-foul day, or everything is drawing a whistle. Though Thibs is a rookie, his years of vocal presence on the sidelines and solid relationships with referees give him latitude to plead his various cases beyond what a typical first-year head coach may otherwise get. Derrick Rose is finally being treated like a star, with fouls more assumed when he initiates contact. He is a 10% better free-throw shooter than last year – a very underappreciated fact that is now more significant than ever.
4. Shorter bench.
Generally, teams rotate fewer players, since the time off between games allows for recovery from heavier minutes. Starters stay in longer, taking fewer and quicker breaks. I'll bet the Bulls stay with what they have been doing all year, however, since the defense of their second unit is a big reason for the 62 wins. If opponents want tired starters on the floor against that kind of length, discipline and activity, I don't think the Bulls will mind.
5. Attacking/defending individual matchups.
This happens all the time in pro ball, but is clearer in playoff games that feature more tight, half-court play. It's not only pure isolation, but realizing mismatches after screens and understanding situations. Can you pick up a quick second foul on an important player to force him to the bench early? Should you be making that same guy fight through screens now so he's tired on offense later? Take away the first option, identify the second and stop that one. Good defense means the last guy they want shooting ends up doing so, and if he makes it you live with it (this is why you will see Joakim Noah in the coming weeks holding the ball, alone, at the foul-line-extended, as the shot clock ticks). The key is what coaches call "KYP," for Know Your Personnel. Right now, this trip, whom do we want to shoot it for us, and then whom do we want shooting it for them?
The Bulls are good because they have been good at this kind of thing all year.
Lastly, here's something that will be discussed ad nauseum in the next weeks that you should make a real effort to ignore: "momentum" from one game to the next, or one series to the next. The invocation of this mythical beast is the laziest crutch of the laziest, dumbest writers and analysts, as they grab onto clichéd postgame prattle to pander to the primitives and simpletons among us.
There is no time for myth in the NBA postseason, there are only truths.
In my world, those are defense, rebounding, foul-shooting, and Derrick Rose.
Dan Bernstein has been the co-host of "Boers and Bernstein" since 1999. He joined the station as a reporter/anchor in 1995. The Boers and Bernstein Show airs every weekday from 1PM to 6PM on The Score, 670AM. Read more of Bernstein's blogs here. Follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein.
Listen to The Boers and Bernstein Show podcasts >>
