Luol Deng's maturation is one of the stories for the Bulls this season and he showed it today to a national playoff audience as he scored 33. This guy is one of those athletic, versatile, long forward who does a little bit of everything on the court. He is in the mould of Shawn Marion and Tayshaun Prince. They are not your typical goto guys and sometimes you don't even know what position they play, but they contribute in a variety of ways. If Deng continues to do that in this series, Miami may be in trouble. Chicago won this game even without the usual contribution from Kirk Hinrich who just played 19 minutes, thanks to foul trouble, and scored 2 points. Speaking of foul trouble, Miami blamed the loss entirely on that as Shaq fouled out and Wade was also in foul trouble. Shaq had 19 and Wade had 21 including his usual fireworks in the 4-th. He really scared the Bulls with a late run in the 4-Th, but the Bulls held on. It's amazing how good Wade is in the clutch. He did miss a late 3, which he should have never taken, and that put a lid on the proceedings. He could have taken the easy 2 and stretched the game out a little bit more. In any case, Shaq accused the ref Eddie Rush of "derailing him". Thats the usual Shaq for you.
Miami's arch-rival Detroit beat Orlando easily. Detroit would have been in some trouble if the Magic hit more of their free throws. They shot just 50% from the line and Detroit fouled them all night knowing fully well they can't shoot the throws, especially Dwight Howard. Detroit kept the game close as always and closed it out in the 4-th. Sometimes it looks like the Pistons play down to their level of competition and then wake up in the 4-Th to finish it off. They shouldn't lose more than a game in this series.
New Jersey won one at Toronto even with an home court that was buzzing like crazy. The Toronto fans are pretty passionate about their basketball and with Vinsanity in town, they were ready. They had great energy and booed him start to finish. They had so many signs and banners ripping him and I thought the Vince Carter bibs were awesome. Vince and Kidd shot a combined 8/30, but Richard Jefferson was awesome with 28 points. Chris Bosh hit his average with 22 points, but he needs to do more if the Raptors are to advance. The Raptors really looked inexperienced in this game and there were stretches when they looked discombobulated. I still think they can win this series, but they need to play smarter. Otherwise, Kidd will rip them apart with the talented and athletic Vinsanity and Rich-Jeff running by his side.
There were a lot of sound bytes emanating from T-Mac's mouth in Houston as he said the Rockets were his team, he gets all the open shots for Luther Head and Shane Battier and it's on him if they lose in the first round. He was not being immodest or arrogant, but he did make the point that he was putting all the pressure on himself. Looks like T-Mac wants to assert himself since earlier in the season, this was clearly becoming Yao's team, especially with the way Van Gundy likes to coach. Then T-Mac carried the team when Yao was hurt and that seems to have given him the idea that he is the true leader of this team. Also the Rockets didn't win much with Yao on the floor and T-Mac hurt. Van Gundy had a funny response when he said nobody has the right say it's their team except the owner! After all that, T-Mac came out and stunk up the joint in the first half as he had just 1 point. But he got back on track in the 3-Rd and so did the Rockets as they defended the Jazz real well. Jazz just scored 11 points in the third. They couldn't get their bigs untracked as Booozer and Okur shot 4/17 and 2/14 respectively. These 2 guys need to start playing better real soon. Otherwise this will be a quick out. Deron Williams can't do it all by himself.
Miami @ Chicago - 91-96
New Jersey @ Toronto -96-91
Orlando @ Detroit - 92-100
Utah @ Houston - 75-84
Playoff schedule for 04/22/2007
Washington @ Cleveland - No way Cleveland loses this one.
LA Lakers @ Phoenix - Suns would like to send a statement here. Easier said than done.
Denver @ San Antonio - Denver has to show they are ready for the Spurs.
Golden State @ Dallas - The Warriors are on a roll and can that continue in a playoff setting?
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