Oh that's cold man ... that's akin to calling my mama a Bee with an itch
(signed president of the all hate Vitale club)

Not only 4 games against Miami. Looks like it also got into their heads that they just swept the World Champs. Interesting to see how they come out in game #2.

Ironically if Ben keeps making those jump shots then someone will have to guard him. Not to start another Ben debate but thats not the same Ben that we had playing for us back in 01 - 05. When someone avg's 15 boards and 4 blocks a game it does not come up that he is a liability on offense. Ben used to absolutly dominate. Something happened last year. He lost a step somehow. Flip was an easy scapegoat but its getting to the point where he can't blame the coach anymore. He is still very dangerous though and will make those intangible plays out there. Just not going to have too many more of those 20 board/5 block games that used to be a staple around the Palace way back when.

well my buddy and i got there really early, and sat around playing New Super Mario Bros. against each other on our Nintendo DS's. The crowd was actually there in time for the game and it was ROCKING ... you couldn't hear half of the national anthem which was pretty unusual, and it didn't let up until the boring 3rd quarter (or the bulls got some of those bogus calls to keep them in the game).

the crowd impressed me for the first time since the Finals games against the Spurs. the orlando series felt like pre-season compared to this. and it was fantastic.

anyway, i loved chauncey's early aggressiveness. simply put, chauncey and rip are better than hinrich and gordon, and considering our bigs already have a huge advantage in this series, there's no reason we shouldn't put this away in 5 games. our guards' hands were super active, and i lost track of how many passes or steals rip and lindsey deflected. flip even made a couple good plays...while they weren't steals, he positioned himself so a bulls player couldn't get to the ball and resulted in them getting a turnover.

the defense was spectacular. i mean it was a complete lockdown, and the bulls only scored 28 in the 2nd half!! everyone was focused and it was great. i love how maxiell shot with confidence, as did dice. one of the most underrated plays of the game was maxiell's HARD foul on tyrus thomas. thomas has struggled throughout the playoffs, and the last thing we need is for him to get confidence, play well, and give the bulls another player on their depth chart. maxiell said 'no free chili', and tyrus went back to sulking.

i expect the bulls to play better, not to collapse 5 guys on 1 penetrator, and to not throw so many passes at each other's feet. that being said, we only used a limited trap and it was effective. if we tighten the screws even further, we're going to blow them out again. if sheed keeps bombing 3s it'll only make it that much easier.

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Of course, it was Bulls giving the game away.

This is just poster board material:
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It sure didn`t seem that way on TV. The crowd seemed very quiet. I was complaining about that in chat several times.

At one point it seemed the announcers were almost whispering.

there were a few lulls - the 3rd quarter mainly, and a couple more after some bogus calls and an ensuing timeout. but other than that the crowd was rocking the entire time. maybe they turned the crowd mic down or something, but it definitely wasn't quiet.

Tonight determines if it's a long series or a short one.

We win tonight and it's over in 5 (a split in Chicago and home clincher).

We lose tonight and it's a 7 game series.


I think we play a close game in the first half and win by 9 (88-79).

Go Pistons!

Well the only thing I can think of is that it was coming off a week of rest, and they'll have probably 3-4 days rest after game 2 before game 3.

But in no way should RIP have played that much.