NBA Playoffs 2012 Preview: Philadelphia 76ers play hosts to the Chicago Bulls in Game 3
The Game 3 of this first round series sees the proceedings shift to Pennsylvania as the Philadelphia 76ers play hosts to the Chicago Bulls at the Wells Fargo Center on Friday night.
Sixers will be looking to continue their winning ways after coming out with an impressive game-2 win in Chicago which has seen the tide shift in their favour as they now hold home court advantage over the mighty
Bulls. On the other hand, Bulls will be looking to put the Game 2 loss and that of their All-Star guard Derrick Rose behind them. Rose was ruled out for the whole season after he suffered a torn ACL deep in Game 1.
Although the Bulls had been raving about how they can overcome the setback, the injury to Derrick might just be the clicking point the Sixers required to turn things around in their favour. They came out gunning
in Game 2 to record a spectacular win and become the first 8th ranked team since 2003 to come out with an away victory over the number 1 seed. And they will be rearing to have a go come Friday night.
When the playoffs started, many would have considered the Sixers to be just a minor hurdle in Chicago`s post season campaign but the side from Pennsylvania has now got to be considered a strong favourite moving
into the next two games which are set to take place at their own backyard.
It is not that the Bulls are not a good side without Rose in their line up. They were the team with the best record in the league for the regular season, even when the guard sat out for 27 games, however this
is playoffs time and a now it is competition between one bunch of above average player with another. On paper, the Sixers do seem to possess more firepower.
Game-2 was a testament to that fact. Jrue Holiday shot the ball 11 of 15 from the field to record a game high of 26 points in the game. He along with Evan Turner, who managed 19 points, took the Bulls team by
the horns. They even got their due from Head Coach, Doug Collins who gave the young players their deserved credit on their impressive shooting,
"Our younger guys, they didn't blink."
For the Bulls, it still remains to be seen how they approach the rest of the series. Their players certainly believe that they still have got what it takes to win and will like to do it as a team.
"We trust the system," Luol Deng said after game-2. "It's not one guy who's going to try to come out and take the load by himself. We want to do it as a team. All year, we always believed that for us to win games,
(we have) to rely on our defence."
Come Friday night, Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau is expected to focus on a defensive shut down mentality to make up for their lack of offence. The Sixers on the other hand will be hoping to repeat their Game
2 performance to advance past the first round of the playoffs.
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