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.