Bulls/Heat 4/8/08

A game between the Bulls and the Heat isn't exactly what I meant by 48 minutes of hell, but its not an inappropriate title. Anyways, so I live in Chicago and subsequently watch more WGN than Carl Winslow. I'm not a big Bulls fan, but its the Association, so I'll tune in nonetheless. Tonight I was lucky enough to see the tweetle dee of basketball take on tweetle dum in the form of the south beach flame outs. Thank god for Ricky Davis or this game would have been unbearable (wait a minute). I actually quit watching at the end of the 3rd, so I don't know yet how it ended, but it nonetheless left me with some concrete observations and some lingering questions.

Observation 1: Kirk Hinrich has no court vision. I mean none. The man brings it up, picks up his dribble, and looks around helplessly. This team will never be able to run an effective offense through him. Someone suggested to me that they go the old school Bulls route and run a point forward through Sefolosha, who has been playing well, but 1) isn't that giving Thabo a little too much credit; and 2) Jim Boylan is nowhere near sophisticated enough to run such an offense.

Observation 2: Luol Deng will never be a first option. He just doesn't have the instinctual offensive attack. I know he practices like his mother's life depended on it and therefore has an offensive arsenal of well rehearsed yet varied moves, but his game just isn't organic enough to really be dependable. Great go-to guys mock classical form with their guts and improvisation. He will never do that.

Observation 3: Really this is an imaginary scenario/nightmare. Now that the bulls have Larry Hughes, its possible for Ben Gordon to drive to the hole, kick it out to Hughes, and Hughes could shoot from beyond the arc. I have never seen it happen, but its now possible, and the mere suggestion if it puts it amongst the worst plays ever devised. If only it could end with Joakim Noah taking foul shots in the suit he whore to the draft. Now that would be ugly. (Let's be honest with ourselves. The real reason this could never happen is the minute Gordon dribbled the ball, he would immediately drive into a double team and take a frantic, difficult, and wholly unnecessary shot.)

Question 1: How in the world did this Bulls team go from sweeping a Heat team with the Big Hip Replacement and D-Wade last year to being down going into the 4th to the Heat's Bizarro D-League version? I just don't get it. All I know is looking back, nobody else from the west but the mental weaklings that are the Mavs would have lost to that Heat team in the NBA Finals. Nobody. Definitely not the Spurs.