Schuster: 8 Down And 8 To Go
By: David Schuster
One by one the Bulls walked into the locker room with big smiles on their faces. And then last but certainly not least came Joakim Noah. Noah wasn't walking, rather he was sprinting acting as if the game was still being played. Noah and his teammates eliminated the Hawks last night 93-73 and it was a dominating team effort.
Lets start with the much maligned Carlos Boozer who saved his best for last with a double double of 23 points and 10 boards. Time after time Derrick Rose found Boozer on the pick and roll and time after time Boozer canned his jump shot. He finished 10 of 16 from the field and had that look of contentment afterwards. Rose didn't need to shoot 32 times in this game to dominate. In fact he shot just 14 times finishing with 19 points and played a magnificent floor game totaling a dozen assists with no turnovers. Luol Deng added 11 points, and Taj Gibson had 10. The bulls had 41 baskets with 34 assists and that's what you call team basketball.
They were fantastic on the other end of the court as well holding Atlanta to the 73 points on just 36% shooting. The Bulls repeatedly made the proper switches and the Hawks rarely had any uncontested shots.
So now it's on to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since the Jordan Championship years. And waiting for them will be the Miami Heat and the National TV Networks have to be salivating over this one. On one side you have Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and crew and on the other it's Rose and the Bulls. The Bulls won all 3 matchups during the regular season but that wont mean much at this time of the year. The series starts on Sunday night and should be great theatre.
