Bulls face LeBron in first round
The Chicago Bulls sealed a place in the play-offs at the last possible chance on Wednesday by beating the Charlotte Bobcats 98-89. Their reward? A first-round series against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
This is about as uneven a series as they come and there will be no repeat of the Dallas v Golden State first round match-up in 2007 where the eighth seeded Golden State Warriors upset the Dallas Mavericks in one of the greatest shocks in NBA history.
The upset isn’t going to come because of James, the reigning MVP, the 2010 MVP frontrunner and the best player in basketball. LeBron is that good he just won’t let an upset happen. He can singlehandedly win a game, he’s done it before. But the greatest thing about LeBron isn’t the fact that he can score 30 points when he wants or get 10 rebounds a game, it’s the fact that he is the ultimate team player. He trusts his teammates and allows them to take shots, something Kobe Bryant didn’t learn until much later in his career, and as a result he finished the season averaging 8.6 assists a game – point guards would be proud of that stat.
If the Bulls are looking at last year’s play-off experience as motivation for this year they might want to stop there. Although they took the Celtics to seven games last year, the Bulls, as a team, are worse this year and the Celtics were old and without Kevin Garnett. The Cavaliers are neither old or without their key player.
And just looking at the scoring stats it does not look good for the Bulls. They finished the season with a -1.6 point difference and barely finished the season with a .500 record. The Cavs on the other hand had no such trouble, finishing with the league’s best record, 61-21, and a +6.5 point difference.
We could spend all day talking about LeBron and how great he is but the Bulls do have a star of their own in the form of point guard Derrick Rose.
The current Rookie of the Year Rose is destined for superstardom and he showed last year against Boston that the pressure of the post-season won’t get to him, but he is just one man, LeBron counts as two.
The Cavs are the best team in the NBA at the moment and the Bulls shouldn’t provide any trouble for LeBron and co, in fact it would be a shock if the Cavs lost a game here.
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