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The Cavs vs Bulls Series

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The Cavs are definitely not anywhere near the defensive team that the Bucks are.
Anywhere near? We'll see.

In my opinion, we haven't ever seen the top Cav's defense as of yet. You will begin to see what the Cavs have defensively starting next Sunday.
 
-Butler can defend Lebron, much better than Deng. Lebron will still do damage, but Butler plays him about as good as you can hope. Don't use this regular season as an indicator, his defense was pretty bad, but he's back to playing elite defense in the playoffs.

Are we sure it is not just pathetic offense from Milwaukee?
-Isn't it a good thing Lowry started instead of Irving? I believe there is some rule in the CBA where if Irving started, his max salary would have increased. Probably not by much, but you never know if it could impact a future decision.
I believe if he makes an All-NBA team, his salary will still increase. It is pretty likely he'll end up All-NBA 3rd team.
 
-- Named to the All-NBA first, second or third team two times.
-- Voted an All-Star starter two times.
-- Named regular-season MVP one time.

The player has to meet one of these fully. He wasn't voted an All-Star twice, nor has he been on 2 All-NBA teams. You have to complete any of the three to be eligible, you cannot do parts of one and parts of another.
 
Mirotic would not be guarding Lebron. Neither would Dunleavy. Its pretty much going to be on Buckets and Snell to make him work on the offensive end. To me this series hinges on how the Bulls use Gasol. If they use him as low post threat then I think the Bulls are in trouble. I hope they use Gasol for high screens this series instead of Noah. Noah presents absolutely no threat in the perimeter and he tries to thread the needle way too much to cutters. If Gasol can consistently hit the midrange then Mosgov will be pulled away from the basket. If he tries to post up then he has no chance.

So if Gasol is effective then the Bulls have a good chance. If not its going to be very difficult.

Not to troll, but you must get the same feeling when seeing LeBron in your building, that I used to get when Michael played our Cavs.

We always hoped and tried to talk sense in beating the Bulls then, but Michael always shut the door on that notion fast. Same thing with LeBron.

I know how it feels though, it's not a great feeling.

LeBron, like always, will have the final say. Just like Michael always did.
 
Watched every Bulls game this post season. They are a different team with Drose firing like he is. They have a really strong mix of athletic wing players and bigs that can pass. The biggest thing is that they are vastly more play-off seasoned than our team.

By no means a lock for a win when we face them, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if we lost. Hopefully we just Lebron them.

I think it will be a pretty incredible series, one of those that is decided by a handful of plays.
 
Mirotic would not be guarding Lebron. Neither would Dunleavy. Its pretty much going to be on Buckets and Snell to make him work on the offensive end. To me this series hinges on how the Bulls use Gasol. If they use him as low post threat then I think the Bulls are in trouble. I hope they use Gasol for high screens this series instead of Noah. Noah presents absolutely no threat in the perimeter and he tries to thread the needle way too much to cutters. If Gasol can consistently hit the midrange then Mosgov will be pulled away from the basket. If he tries to post up then he has no chance.

So if Gasol is effective then the Bulls have a good chance. If not its going to be very difficult.

I'm sure the Bulls will have Snell and Butler guard Lebron but this is exactly the mismatch that the Cavs present them. The problem for the Bulls is they absolutely have to have Butler who is their best or at work second best offensive player guard the best player in the league. Meanwhile the Cavs can have two good 3 and D types (Smith better on offense but still competent on D and Shumpert who is a very good defender and decent offensive player) to throw at both Butler and Rose.

Snell had one good offensive game but let's be real he's not a good offensive player and this gets back to original conundrum: the Bulls simply don't have the personnel to get playoff level spacing and play good defense. The Cavs may not be an overall great defensive team but it's hard to get mismatches on this team (the Cavs can throw a decent defender at any spot who will also force the player to play on defense)
 
Not to troll, but you must get the same feeling when seeing LeBron in your building, that I used to get when Michael played our Cavs.

We always hoped and tried to talk sense in beating the Bulls then, but Michael always shut the door on that notion fast. Same thing with LeBron.

I know how it feels though, it's not a great feeling.

LeBron, like always, will have the final say. Just like Michael always did.
Michael was 4-0 against the Cavs in the playoffs.
LeBron will soon be 4-0 against the Bulls in the playoffs.
 
-A large majority of 3 pointers that Rose is taking is within the flow of the offense. He needs to take those. Imagine if teams are sagging way off Lebron, you'd want him to take those 3s, right? If he makes them, the more 3s within the flow of the offense you want him to take. They're falling for Rose, so he's taking them. When the defense respects the shot, it opens up driving lanes.

I think the point people were making when they brought up Rose's shooting is that there is no reason to believe he's suddenly become a 46% three-point shooter.
 
This will be a really hard series for the Bulls front court. Gasol really struggles against the length of moz. He will need to pick and pop all the time. Noah having to step out and guard love is huge advantage for the cavs it takes away his help defense and reducing rebounding chances. Conversely kyrie is in for a though time. He will be pressed and bumped and attack in the pick and roll every trip down the floor. Cavs need kev to hit his shots and Irving to hold his own defensively. Then lebron just lebron s the team to victory
 
I've seen the Bulls fans mention that the Bucks are a better defensive team than the Cavs, but they're kind of glossing over the fact that the Cavs' offense is literally in a different galaxy than anything the Bucks can put out there. Offensively, the Bucks are a disaster of terrible shooting and no floor spacing.

Our team, on the other hand, throws out one of the best offenses in the league.
 
Despite Noal and Gasol surprisingly the Bulls are pretty average rim protectors this playoff - 50% opponent field goal percentage at the rim (we are at 48%). Does it mean Kyrie will be able to drive to the basket relatively easily?
 
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Obviously, what D-Rose is doing from behind the arc isn't sustainable from game to game. He'll have off nights. But if he can shoot like this in four games out of seven, that's a nightmare situation for the Cavs because he is absolutely un-guardable at that point. If you have to respect his three all game, he's now got the option of blowing by his defender for a layup/and-one or jacking up a three in said defender's face. It's absurd. I didn't think we'd see him shoot like this coming off the injury, but he's doing it and it scares the shit out of me.

The Bulls had a lot of great complementary pieces coming into this season, and they're all clicking together at the worst possible time for the Cavs. The only good news is that Taj and Noah are banged up, but they're going to get a nice bit of rest provided they close out the Bucks today. This is the best Bulls team we've seen since Rose came into the league. The Cavs will have to find another level defensively, and get consistently huge contributions from the Big 3 if they're going to win this series. It's certainly possible, but, man, it's going to be a war.
 
Obviously, what D-Rose is doing from behind the arc isn't sustainable from game to game. He'll have off nights. But if he can shoot like this in four games out of seven, that's a nightmare situation for the Cavs because he is absolutely un-guardable at that point. If you have to respect his three all game, he's now got the option of blowing by his defender for a layup/and-one or jacking up a three in said defender's face. It's absurd. I didn't think we'd see him shoot like this coming off the injury, but he's doing it and it scares the shit out of me.


Every statistic known to man points to Rose's shooting to get worse. In fact, he's most likely due to shoot terribly against the Cavs as his numbers come back down to career form.
Dude hasn't turned into Steph Curry.

The far more realistic thing the Cavs have to be scared of is that Rose's length and athleticism really slow down Kyrie.
 
Despite Noal and Gasol surprisingly the Bulls are pretty average rim protectors this playoff - 50% opponent field goal percentage at the rim (we are at 48%). Does it mean Kyrie will be able to drive to the basket relatively easily?

Absolutely. Irving is going to tear them apart. Rose has never been a good defender and he doesn't even move as well as he used to now, and Brooks is just a little quick guard that has never even tried to defend anybody.

Love is going to pull a big-man out of the paint, if Noah and Gasol are playing together, it will be Noah because Gasol doesn't move much/well. Kyrie will have a field day with Gasol protecting the rim. If they play Noah with Gibson or Mirotic so that they can keep Noah in the paint, I still think Kyrie and LBJ will be able to finish over him or at the very least put him in some real foul trouble. But in that case we can feed Love inside. If it's Mirotic, they'll double him. If it's Gibson, he should be able to do some work and as long as we space the floor properly, we're going to have threes all day.

Elite defenses would struggle to slow this Cavs team down, and Chicago is no longer an elite defense. They aren't going to stop us.

The only guy I'm worried about, oddly enough, is Dunleavy...because he always kills us...but we should be able to abuse his bad defense enough to make anything he does offensively not as big of a deal.
 
I've seen the Bulls fans mention that the Bucks are a better defensive team than the Cavs, but they're kind of glossing over the fact that the Cavs' offense is literally in a different galaxy than anything the Bucks can put out there. Offensively, the Bucks are a disaster of terrible shooting and no floor spacing.

Our team, on the other hand, throws out one of the best offenses in the league.

Exactly, the Bulls have shown literally no ability whatsoever, guarding us at all. I agree, we're going to give up points to them at times. Unless people really believe their offense will out will ours, I just don't see it at all.

The Bulls defense has not been that good. They have Noah playing the 4, not his natural position, he's not as good defensively playing it, and there's speculation he's not been really healthy.

Gasol is not the defensively player he was 4 years ago. It's easy to get him out of position. Butler is going to be guarding LeBron, and come on, no one can guard LeBron in this league.

Defensively, there's nothing to suggest they are any match with our offense at all.
 

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