I watched the Bulls lose to the Celtics this afternoon. For all that it was a loss, I wasn't too discouraged by the outcome. After all, it was the last game of a nine game road trip, and the Bulls were down their single best player.
No, what I took away from it was the fact that despite being exhausted and short a star, the Bulls managed to hang in until the very end, and with a little better shooting and decision making in the final minute could have gone to overtime or even won the game straight up.
What it means, then, is that even without Derrick Rose on hand, the Bulls are actually a pretty good team. Unfortunately, "pretty good" only gets you a couple of rounds into the playoffs. You need to be great to win it all, and with Rose on the bench, the Bulls just can't make it to greatness.
So despite tonight's close loss and the Roseless Bulls' easy win Friday night against the hapless Charlotte Bobcats, it comes down to what we already knew....the Bulls will go as far as Derrick Rose can take them. And if by playoff time he doesn't come back from his back injury, or even is kind of hampered by it, the Bulls will make the playoffs but won't be able to win it all.
Rose is that important. Which means that I approve of coach Tom Thibideau keeping Rose out of the game. Losing regular season games is less important than winning in the playoffs, so doing whatever he can to preserve Derrick for June is fine by me. Just win enough without him to get in to the playoffs and I won't complain at all if we don't see Derrick until the tournament starts.
No comments:
Post a Comment