Cavs Will Battle Bulls in the Playoffs for the First Time Since the Michael Jordan Era
The Chicago Bulls eliminated the Cleveland Cavaliers from the playoffs five times between 1988 and 1994; at first the rivalry was highly competitive--with Chicago winning by 3-2 margins in both 1988 and 1989--but the soon to be three-time NBA Champion Bulls swept the Cavs 4-0 in 1993 and even without Michael Jordan the Bulls swept the Cavs 3-0 in 1994. This year the Cavs will have the opportunity to get at least some symbolic revenge as a 61-21 Cleveland team that finished with the league's best record for the second year in a row faces off against a 41-41 Chicago team that has the worst record of the NBA's 16 playoff participants.My newest CavsNews.com article analyzes this Eastern Conference first round playoff matchup (6/19/15 edit: the link to CavsNews.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):
The Cleveland
Cavaliers began the 2009 playoffs by sweeping the Detroit Pistons, a Central
Division rival who they had faced in two competitive playoff series in 2006 and
2007; this year, the Cavs’ postseason journey also starts with a battle against
a Central Division foe—the Chicago Bulls, a franchise that tormented the Cavs
by eliminating Cleveland from the playoffs five times between 1988 and 1994. Chicago eked out a pair
of 3-2 triumphs in 1988 and 1989 but by the end of that era the Bulls were
clearly superior, sweeping the Cavs 4-0 in 1993 and beating the Cavs 3-0 in
1994 even though Michael Jordan had become a Birmingham Barons outfielder. For
any longtime NBA fan who vividly remembers watching Jordan, Scottie Pippen and
company battle against Mark Price, Ron Harper, Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance and
Craig Ehlo it is hard to believe that more than 15 years have passed since the
last time these franchises faced each other in postseason play.
Cleveland and
Chicago split their 2009-10 regular season series 2-2 but that is a very
misleading statistic; the Bulls’ first win happened during Cleveland’s sixth
game of the season when the 3-3 Cavs had not yet found their rhythm and the
Bulls’ second win took place last week with LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal and
Delonte West sitting out the whole game and Antawn Jamison on the bench down
the stretch for precautionary reasons after he tweaked his ankle: it is quite
telling that the Bulls—who desperately needed the victory as they battled the
Toronto Raptors for the final playoff spot—struggled to beat the shorthanded
Cavs 109-108. Sandwiched between those two losses, the Cavs routed the Bulls in
December and then defeated the Bulls in Chicago
in March despite being without the services of O’Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
The reality
is that a series between Cleveland’s second unit and Chicago’s first unit would
be pretty competitive but a series between Cleveland’s All-Star studded lineup
versus a Chicago squad that has the worst record among the league’s 16 playoff
teams (41-41) is a serious mismatch; the Cavs have five current or former All-Stars—LeBron
James, Shaquille O’Neal, Antawn Jamison, Mo Williams and Zydrunas
Ilgauskas—four of whom made the squad within the past two years. The Cavs are
too big, too talented and too deep for the Bulls.
What about
the way that last year’s 41-41 Bulls pushed the then-defending NBA Champion
Boston Celtics to seven games in the first round? There are several important
differences to keep in mind: (1) The Celtics’ frontcourt was severely depleted
compared to the unit they deployed during their championship season, as Kevin
Garnett and Leon Powe were out due to injuries while James Posey and P.J. Brown
were no longer members of the team; (2) the Bulls received significant
contributions from Ben Gordon (a team-high 24.3 ppg versus Boston in the
playoffs) and John Salmons (18.1 ppg versus Boston in the playoffs), neither of
whom are on the roster now; (3) the Celtics had trouble dealing with the Bulls’
youth and athleticism but this year’s Cavs can counter by either going small to
nullify those advantages or else by using big lineups to overpower the Bulls in
the paint.
The Bulls’
best player is 2009 Rookie of the Year/2010 All-Star Derrick Rose, a dynamic
and explosive point guard. Rose led the Bulls in scoring (20.8 ppg) and assists
(6.0 apg) this season and he performed extremely well down the stretch,
averaging 25.4 ppg and 7.0 apg as Chicago went 6-2 in April to overtake Toronto
in the standings. However, he is not a three point threat (16-60, .267) and his
midrange jumper is improving but is not yet a consistent weapon; think of Rose
as a much smaller and less deadly version of LeBron James circa 2007: Rose is
great in the open court and a powerful finisher at the hoop but Cleveland’s
defense is designed to wall off the paint, deny middle penetration and force
the opposing team to make contested jump shots. Rose averaged 17.0 ppg on .438
field goal shooting (well below his overall field goal percentage of .489) in
three games versus Cleveland
this season.
The Bulls’
second leading scorer is Luol Deng (17.6 ppg), an injury prone small forward
who seemingly had a breakout season in 2006-07 but has been regressing ever
since; injuries kept Deng out of the Boston series last year but even if he
plays well he cannot make up for the scoring that Gordon and Salmons provided.
The Bulls struggle offensively because they have no postup game and because
Rose is the only player they have who can consistently create a shot for
himself or his teammates. The combination of Chicago’s
offensive woes and Cleveland’s
strong defense means that it will be difficult for the Bulls to score 85 points
per game in this series.
Joakim Noah
(10.7 ppg, 11.0 rpg) could be an X factor for the Bulls because of his frenetic
style of play but the Cavs can wear him down early in the game by posting up
O’Neal and then later on they can counter with their own energy guys, Anderson
Varejao and J.J. Hickson.
There are
only two possible concerns for the Cavs about this series (other than the
obvious, namely an injury to LeBron James): (1) Shaquille O’Neal has been out
of the lineup since February 25 and the only times that the Cavaliers have
struggled this season (not counting the de facto practice games that they have
played for the past week or so) have been when the rotation underwent
significant changes (first at the very start of the season when the Cavs adjusted
to having two new starters and then again right after the Jamison trade); (2)
all of the “resting” that the Cavs have been doing recently means that some
players will have to get readjusted to going back to their normal amount of
minutes/shot attempts. It had originally been suggested that O’Neal might not
return until the Conference Finals, so the Cavs are actually fortunate that
they can get the adjustment period out of the way against an inferior opponent
that likely is not equipped to exploit any slight slippage that the Cavs may
experience in game one.
Labels: Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Derrick Rose, LeBron James, Shaquille O'Neal
posted by David Friedman @ 4:30 PM
2 Comments:
When can we expect your playoff previews?
Codysseus:
As usual, my playoff preview article will be posted the day before the playoffs begin.
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