Chicago Bulls beat Atlanta Hawks 86-73 - NBA Play-off Recap
Most Valuable Player Derrick Rose chipped in 25 points while Joakim Noah donated 19 points and 14 boards, as the top-seeded Chicago Bulls dominated the Atlanta Hawks 86-73 in Game 2 of their second-round play-off series on Wednesday night.
Rose had eight of the Bulls’ 14 turnovers. Luol Deng finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds while Carlos Boozer led the Bulls with eight points and 11 boards.
"Eight is probably very high," Chicago Head Coach Tom Thibodeau said of Rose. "He's a risk taker, but that's the way he has to play. We want him to be aggressive.”
Jeff Teague replaced an injured Kirk Hinrich and tallied 21 points for Atlanta, which pulled out a surprising victory 103-95 over the Bulls in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals on Monday.
Joe Johnson, who had scored 34 points in Game 1, notched 16 points on Wednesday and Jamal Crawford who had tallied 22 points off the bench in the opener, ended with just 11 points on 2-of-10 shooting in Game 2.
"They came out and applied pressure," Teague said after the game. "They made every catch we got tough.”
The fifth-seeded Hawks shot 51.3 percent in Game 1, but the Bulls limited them to a 33.8 percent shooting overall in Game 2.
Game 3 is scheduled for Friday in Atlanta.
Rose came out strong in the opening period, posting 12 points for the Bulls. Meanwhile, Atlanta shot just 8-of-26 in the opening 12 minutes and trailed by six points at end of the first quarter.
The Bulls ended the first period on a 10-2 run, with Rose’s only three-point play of the game closing the burst.
Chicago took a 40-30 lead with less than four minutes remaining in the half when Boozer drilled a jumper. Atlanta shot only 14-of-43 from the field in a span of 24 minutes and trailed 48-37 at the break.
"We did a very bad job first half with our shot selection and it carried over pretty much the rest of the game," Atlanta Coach Larry Drew said. "We had opportunity after opportunity, but we were our biggest enemy tonight on the offensive end. We just did
not do a good job executing. We took bad shots."
The Bulls were ahead by as many as 14 points in the third period, but the Hawks went on an 8-2 flurry to cap the quarter. Teague made two free throws in the final minute to pull Atlanta within 65-58 heading into the final quarter.
Teague drove for a layup with less than 10 minutes to play in the fourth that trimmed the Hawks’ deficit to 67-60, but Chicago stretched their lead to double-digit moments later. Noah put the Bulls up 75-61 when he had a put-back jam off a miss from Deng
with less than seven minutes left.
Atlanta rallied with one last run, cutting their gap to 75-69 after Josh Smith’s three-pointer with less than five minutes to go.
Chicago then ripped off six straight points to put the game away. Rose and Teague hit the jumpers in the final moments to cap the scoring. Atlanta shot just 4-of-15 in the fourth period.
Tags: