The Bulls and NBA Playoffs

Watching Game 1 between the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics yesterday, I thought back to 1986. I was a frosh in college that year when Michael Jordan made a late season comeback to tug the Bulls to the play-offs. They were up against a mighty Boston team that posted a 40-1 record at the old Boston Garden and they seemed like a lock to match to their third title of the 1980's. Bill Walton had a phenomenal year in Celtic green and seemed poised to win the Sixth Man Award.

The Bulls, well as this time, I wasn't a big Bulls fan yet but was already wavering in my rooting for Philadelphia. The Doctor was in the midst of his last house call then.

I saw the game at my grandfather's house (they had FEN -- Far East Network; the US Armed Forces television and radio network in the Philippines and Guam). Michael Jordan scored a phenomenal series but the Bulls were wiped out by the guys in green.

And now, Chicago had another rookie sensation in Derrick Rose. As much as I like Rose, I think those comparisons to MJ even if Derrick scored 36 points against Boston in Game 1 is idiotic. Rose has a far better team than MJ did in his soph year in 1986 but MJ was already a marquee player then and do not let anyone else say otherwise. Michael had a bunch of crackheads for teammates and he was the guy who led them to a scoring high.

Only this isn't about MJ, but this year's Bulls. Okay I got it right when they'd make it back to the playoffs. It was a great battle except for that bum call on Joakim Noah that allowed Paul Pierce to go to the line and tie the match so it would go into overtime. Such a terrible terrible call at which that idiot of an analyst said that one should never be too aggressive when trying to block a shot in the dying seconds. I guess this dumbasss never saw Ho Grant block Kevin Johnson in Game 6 of the 1993 Finals or Scottie Pippen blocking Charles Thompson twice (with 1 block eahc by Grant and Jordan) in Game 5 of the 1993 Eastern Semis.

Does this mean that Boston is out of it? Not a chance. But that places more pressure on them.


Last September 2008, we were asked to do a preview of the NBA. Yes, I thought that was way too early to make a better assessment of the teams. After all, Sports Illustrated releases it's preview during the first week of the regular season.

Here's was my play-off prediction vis-a-vis the current one:

Eastern Conference Rankings (in parenthesis mine as of September 2008)
1. Cleveland (2)
2. Boston (1)
3. Orlando (8)
4. Atlanta (didn't rank)
5. Miami (didn't rank)
6. Philadelphia (4)
7. Chicago (5)
8. Detroit (3)

Western Conference Rankings (in parenthesis mine as of September 2008)
1. Los Angeles (2)
2. Denver (didn't rank)
3. San Antonio (3)
4. Portland (8)
5. Houston (4)
6. Dallas (7)
7. New Orleans (1)
8. Utah (5)