Schuster: Bulls One Win Away From Advancing On
By: David Schuster
Admit it Bulls fans, you were plenty nervous going into the 4th quarter of game 5 with the home town team up just one point. After all the Bulls had blown a 15 point 1st quarter advantage and the Hawks even took the lead themselves. But who should come to the rescue? None other then Taj Gibson. What you say? Not Derrick Rose? Well Rose definitely came through both early and late but on this night he had help in the form of Gibson.
All the 2nd year power forward did in that 4th quarter was hit all 5 of his field goal attempts (good for 11 points) and play lock down defense. In fact the Bulls finally played some tough nose defense harassing Atlanta into 5/16 shooting over those final 12 minutes. And Tom Thibodeau stayed with the same unit for most of that 4th quarter as fellow "bench mobbers" Omar Asik and Ronnie Brewer joined Gibson, Rose and Luol Deng on the court.
Rose also scored 11 points in the 4th giving him a game high 33 on the night. As for Deng he ended up with 23 and if not for him at the beginning of the game the Bulls would have been trailing. Deng scored the Bulls first 7 points and he contributed some lock down defense of his own through out the contest.
Carlos Boozer may not have played at all in the 4th but he still contributed a double double with 11 points and 12 rebounds in 29 minutes and Keith Bogans had 11 points with 9 of those coming on 3 pointers.
So it's back to Atlanta where the Bulls hope to get it right this time unlike thir last game down there on Sunday. In that contest they fell apart late but made up for it by doing just the opposite on Tuesday night. The Bulls smell blood and will try and eliminate the Hawks with another defensive minded effort...sprinkled in with a lot of Rose.
