Mission Impossible for Bulls and Rose?
Watching Derrick Rose rise up against Cleveland’s defenders is just amazing.
He’s got the leaping ability, the fighting heart as well as the drive to really try to help the Chicago Bulls pull off an improbable upset against the championship-seeking Lebron James and the Cavaliers.
Down 0-2 now as the Bulls head back to the United Center in Chicago, Rose needs all the help he could muster in their bid to make the series more interesting.
Titanic battle between Lebron James (top) and Derrick Rose.
Last season, Rose and the Bulls surprised everyone when they took the then reigning champion Boston Celtics to a tough seven game series in the opening round of the 2009 NBA Playoffs.
Back then, Rose had another scoring machine Ben Gordon to shoot the lights out either at the United Center or at the TD Banknorth, home of the Celtics.
Though ousted in the first round, the Bulls’ strong first round plays left a mark in the NBA history pages as one of the toughest, tightest Playoffs series ever played.
This year, Rose will have to do it without Gordon, who already joined the Detroit Pistons during the off season, as well as John Salmons, another lethal scorer, who was sent this midseason to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Center Joakim Noah has added some spice to the Bulls-Cavaliers series match up with his unkind words against Lebron and Cleveland, thus heightening the emotions further at the “Q” Arena in Ohio.
And so far, Lebron has responded with tremendous ferocity, as evidenced in his 40-point explosion in Game 2 where the Cavs scored a 112-102 win before the boisterous crowd at the Quicken and Loans Arena.
Though the Bulls have two big chances to even the series in Games 3 and 4 at the United Center, the odds are certainly stacked against them considering that the Cavs are already playing the kind of Playoffs intensity everyone expected from them.
And that in itself spells more trouble for Rose and the Bulls.
A sweep for the Cavs in the offing is not a far-fetched idea.
What do you think?
Michael Jordan: The Greatest Ever?
It’s been more than 11 years ago since Michael Jordan retired a second time from active play in the NBA after leading to Chicago Bulls to a dynastic reign in the world’s biggest and most popular cage league.
And 11 years since his memorable game-winning and championship-clinching jump shot over a slipping Bryon Russell, who had the unenviable task of shadowing him in the Bulls-Utah Jazz championship series, Jordan hit the sports headlines once again.
No, it has nothing to do with his plan to return with the Bulls or with the Washington Wizards, but after making it to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, held in the birth place of the sport in Springfield, Mass.
Since being an NBA follower during the 1980s when Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy were running the “Showtime” with the LA Lakers, I’ve always wondered why sports scribes, towards the middle of the 1990s, would label Jordan as the Greatest basketball player ever to play the game.
I don’t really know.
But Art Thiel, who wrote an article that appeared in the Official NBA encyclopedia, mentioned that “Michael Jordan became the universal measuring device for appraising greatness.”
I really wondered what was the basis of the sports scribes, who for decades had been covering the NBA and had more or less seen the countless exploits of legendary basketball figures, before finally seeing Jordan and getting mesmerized by him.
Is it Jordan’s scoring year in year out that began in 1985? Or his passionate game face that triggered the Bulls championship stampede in 1991 to 1993, beating Western Conference’s best teams—the Lakers, the Portland Trailblazers and the Phoenix Suns in that order? Then the 1996-1998 seasons, which saw Jordan leading the Bulls anew to the NBA’s Mount Olympus? Beating squads like the Seattle Supersonics in 1996 and the Jazz in 1997 and 1998?
If it’s scoring, then I think recent Manila visitor and NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has the inside track to the “greatest ever” tag because he owns the all-time NBA scoring title of 38,387 points scored spanning 20 seasons, plus he’s in the third all-time rebounding leaders, just behind the late Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.
Or maybe his intensity each game that earned the nod of people that eventually made the “greatest-ever” tag sink.
Well, the possibilities are endless when we talk of Jordan and his exploits.
But what about you? What do you think made Jordan the “greatest-ever” pro basketball player of all-time?
Photo Source: http://jefferykrit.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/michael_jordan.jpg
Shaq-Lebron Tandem Doesn't Guarantee NBA Title
Will the Shaq-Lebron tandem produce an NBA championship this 2009-2010 season?
On paper, Shaquille O’Neal’s journeyman route that ends at Cleveland recently can be threatening to a lot of teams from the East.
Orlando must have smelled something fishy in Cleveland, Ohio weeks after the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA title conquest, so that the Magic engineered their own stunning deal that brought in former high-flyer Vince Carter to Florida.
But let me dissect for the moment Shaq’s new partnership with the so-called NBA “king” Lebron James.
After leading the Cavs to a franchise-best 66-16 win-loss record, a pair of series sweeps in the first two rounds against Detroit and Atlanta, Lebron and Co.’s supposed trip to the NBA Finals was cut short when “Superman” Dwight Howard and the Magic knocked them out of the “dream land”, turning what could have been a phenomenal season into a nightmarish end.
So, enter Shaq.
The 37-year-old center is a surefire attraction for the Cavs, whose front office is determined to flush in the toilet their forgettable 2008-2009 NBA campaign as soon as the “Diesel” officially joins the team’s practice.
And the Cavs’ immediate aim? Grab the NBA trophy away from Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.
And that would surely be an interesting Finals plot should Shaq be able to help Lebron and the Cavs square up with Kobe and the Lakers 11 and a half months from now in the Last Dance.
However, before Cleveland even entertain thoughts of facing LA in a Finals match up, they should first set their sight on eliminating Orlando, Boston, Atlanta and even Chicago from the expected tight Eastern Conference power struggle.
Question is, “Can Shaq and his 37-year-old legs keep in step with the Cavs’ running game for 82 regular season games, and probably another four rounds in the Playoffs and the Finals?”
And can Cleveland provide enough backup big men to give breather for Shaq and preserve him in time for the Playoffs where Orlando and Boston are surely waiting?
Lebron, Delonte West and Mo Williams could surely sustain the Cavs’ running game, but watching Shaq run back for a nine-month grind would definitely take its toll on O’Neals’ body and legs.
I think if the Cavs want to last the distance in the 2009-2010 season, Cleveland needs to add up more bench support like a good back up center, a reliable power forward and some quality minutes from some players in the free agency market.
Shaq is no spring chicken. He sure can contribute as evident in his 17 points and eight rebounds average in 74 games with the Phoenix Suns last season.
But Father Time is Shaq’s biggest enemy from now on. And if Cleveland’s front office management will simply be contented with the Shaq-Lebron partnership, the probability of another frustrating season is not far for the Cavs.
Should that happen, Ben Wallace and Sahsa Pavlovic would have the last laugh.
That would be more painful than the 2009 season Playoffs meltdown.
History "Today": Chicago Bulls Snare Fifth NBA Crown
June 13, 1997. Exactly 12 years ago, Michael Jordan and his favored Chicago Bulls continued its history-altering run, winning its fifth NBA championship in the last seven years following its pulsating 90-86 victory over the Utah Jazz at the jam packed United Center.
Michael Jordan's partnership with Chicago coach Phil Jackson assured NBA dominance during the 1990s.
Jordan averaged 31.1 points in 19 playoff games during the 1997 season as he led the Bulls to a 4-2 series conquest of the Utah Jazz en route to bagging his fifth NBA Finals Most Valuable Player trophy.
Chicago added Utah to its swelling list of Finals victims, which already included the Los Angeles Lakers (1991), then led by Magic Johnson; the Portland Trail Blazers (1992) behind Clyde Drexler and Phoenix Suns (1993) led by Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson.
Chicago coach Phil Jackson was the man behind the Bulls’ dominant run during the 1990s, where he used the triangle offense invented by Tex Winter.
