The Choice (and remember, death is not an option): The NBA’s regular season or the NBA’s Eastern Conference?
Except for Miami, of course. The Heat are so good they should be in the West. The rest of the East is the junior varsity.
And that junior varsity isn’t good enough to beat San Antonio’s junior varsity.
The Spurs just completed a back-to-back road set against Brooklyn and the Bulls, winning both games with nobody on their roster.
No, really. Nobody. Some guy named de Colo. Oh, and Danny Green. He’s a D-Leaguer. He helped the Spurs beat the Bulls in the United Center on Monday.
Tim Duncan was out. Same goes for Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. I think the Spurs had one starter and a bench of inflatable pool toys, and that bunch pantsed the Bulls.
The Bulls committed 19 turnovers. The Spurs turned those into 29 points. The Bulls allowed the Spurs to hit half their three-pointers. Like the Bulls don’t know that the Spurs have been known to live on three-pointers to spread the floor so Parker and Ginobli drive to the hoop where Duncan does his magic.
Only the Bulls didn’t face Parker, Ginobili or Duncan. They faced some guy named Neal from Australia. I think he’s from Australia, or maybe Neal from Australia is a caller to the Score. Whatever and whoever, that guy had 16 points off the bench, more than any Bulls starter except Nate Robinson.
OK, so maybe the first game back from a long road trip is a traditional loser. But the Bulls were facing a chump lineup similar to the one that cost the Spurs a quarter-of-a-million earlier this season. Now, Gregg Popovich doesn’t fly home the guys he won’t play. He has them sit on the bench. That shoud’ve been a taunting foul. The Bulls couldn’t beat the guys who couldn’t beat out the Spurs starters.
But it doesn’t matter. It’s the NBA regular season. It’s as useless as playing in the Eastern Conference. I believe David Stern just canceled the Eastern Conference.
If he didn’t, he should. He should move the Heat to the West and move Sacramento to the East, and just like that, the NBA would have a mercy setup where one of the sad teams in the East is guaranteed to make the NBA Finals. I’m serious, people, because that will be the Bulls’ only chance to get to the Finals for a lot of years, even if they'd have zero chance of beating the Heat, Thunder or Spurs should they get there.
Stop the charade. End the fantasy. There was a lot of yammering last week about Derrick Rose coming back and then the Bulls will show the Heat and the world. But no. Sorry. Not happening. Not this year and not any year that Lebron James is upright.
I mean, have you seen him play lately? He is shooting a mind-boggling percentage while threatening a triple-double every night. He seems to pick a quarter to take over, and there’s your ballgame.
Oh, and by the way, James can defend any opposing player who needs defending. No, not just defend -- shut down. That goes for any position 1-5.
James has gotten better. The best player in the world, the one who obliterated Rose from the playoffs in 2011, has gotten better after getting his first title.
Wise up, Chicago. The only reason somebody would talk optimistically about the Bulls’ chances to beat the Heat is because that person found some weapons-grade marijuana.
Now you know what it was like being a Knicks fan in the 1990s. Anybody can beat anybody in the Eastern Conference playoffs, but nobody can beat Miami.
Geez, do the Bulls ever need James to opt out of his deal in a couple years and either come here or go back to Cleveland. Otherwise, the Bulls had better hope James tries to play minor-league baseball.
