NBA basketball picks and previews 5/3/09
Seeing as the biggest game (so far) of the NBA play-offs was played on Saturday night it would be stupid not to have an in depth look at it. The game was Chicago @ Boston in Game 7 of their first round series where the 7th seeded Bulls had managed to take Boston to the wire in many of the previous games and in doing so were able to win 3 of them. However with home court advantage still with the Celtics Chicago knew they still had a massive task on their hands. They were able to go to the TD Banknorth Garden and win in Game 1 in overtime 105-103, a game that set the tone for the rest of a series that had 6 periods of overtime in total. In all 6 previous games the largest points margin in one game had been 3 in Games 2 and 4.
So onto this game and in the first quarter the Bulls came out firing and were up by 8 points at one point before ending the quarter 28-23 ahead after a Brian Scalabrine 3 pointer ended the scoring. Presumably Doc Rivers kicked up a storm in the interval as Boston were then the team to come out hot and outscored the Bulls 29-11 in the 2nd to establish a 13 points half time lead that Chicago couldn’t, in the end, respond to.
Despite winning the third quarter by 7 points the Bulls didn’t have enough power to see them into a 4th quarter lead despite Ben Gordon scoring 33 on the night and Derrick Rose following up with 18. It wasn’t that the Celtics played well it’s just that Chicago didn’t shoot well, they only managed 39 percent from the field including some bad misses late on that would have tied the game or put them a point behind Boston. On the other side Ray Allen top scored with 23 points and 11 assists while Kendrick Perkins also got a double double with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Glen Davis and Paul Pierce also chipped in with 15 and 20 points respectively in a 109-99 team performance that sees them through to play Southeastern Division champions Orlando in a 2nd/3rd match-up in the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals.
While Orlando still have Dwight Howard the Celtics don’t have Kevin Garnett and so will be at a disadvantage if any of the games become a battle in the paint. For Chicago it will be a summer of reflection on what in reality has been a fantastic second half of the season for them, at one point they were 8 games off of the play-offs but still managed to work their way into the mix, even taking 7th seed away from Detroit. Sure they will be disappointed to have lost after coming so far but they’ll have earned respect and will be feared by the rest of the league if they can keep hold of all of their starters, especially Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose. If they can do this they will be confident of making a much bigger charge for the play-offs in 2010.
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