Bulls 101, Celtics 93

Derrick Rose must have heard me and Shooter bash the hell out of him on the podcast because in the biggest game of the year for the Bulls he stepped with a career high 39 points and one NASTY dunk.  Rose is now averaging over 20 ppg this year after carrying the entire Bulls team in this last stretch run.  Rose was 15-22 from the field and his counterpart Hinrich dropped 30 himself!  It was a pretty evenly matched game as both teams had under 10 turnovers, both had at least 40 rebounds, each team made 5 3′s and they both went to the line 24 times.  It was the Celtics defense that was suspect, more specifically on Rose and Hinrich.

With the loss the Celtics have no locked up the 4-seed giving Atlanta the 3 spot.  The Bulls are now 40-41 and their final game is a MUST win @ Charlotte.  If the Bulls win they are in, if they lose and the Raptors win (they play the Knicks, so it’s likely) then the Raptors hold the tie breaker and would be the 8th seed to set up a date to lose to the Cavs.

Suns 123, Nuggets 101

What an embarassing loss by the Nugs who are playing for that 2-4 seed still.  With the loss Denver is a half game behind the Suns for the 4 seed.  So if things stay the same then last night’s game was a huge loss for the Nuggets because they have no lost home court in the first round.  The Nuggets honestly forgot to show up, they were down by 21 at half time!  Melo played decent with 29 points on 13-28 but everyone else sucked and the Nuggets shot 42% overall.

This game was so one sided it’s not even funny, the Suns shot 53% and made 14 3′s!  14!  Also the Nuggets were outrebounded by 18 in the pounding.  This spells trouble for the Nuggets.  Down the stretch the only games they seemed to win were the ones in which I didn’t pick them to win in last week’s podcast!  What the heck!  If these two teams match up again in the playoffs I say Suns in 6.

-The Basher