Pippen Ain't Easy
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Bulls-Cavs Game 4: Sorting Out the Final Four Minutes of Game 4

By Michael Whitlow

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The Chicago Bulls can still do the one thing they have yet to do since LeBron James arrived in the league 12 years ago, but their path to dethroning the “King”, just got a whole lot harder.

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After Derrick Rose‘s game-winning triple on Friday night to give the Chicago Bulls a 2-1 series lead for the first time ever against a LeBron James-led team, the game’s best player came right back with a dagger of his own to tie the series at two games apiece.

James’ go-home deuce from the corner as time expired in Game 4 on Sunday afternoon not only tied the series, but swung the series momentum right back to Cleveland, with Game 5 on Tuesday night back in Cleveland.

There’s many things to look at from the Game 4 chaos:

  • Positive – Derrick Rose is playing like the best player in this series. After his clutch triple in Game 3, Rose responded with a 31-point performance, including hitting all seven of his free throw attempts.
  • Negative – The starting trio of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert — who all have lower-body issues — shot 13-for-48(!) from the floor on Sunday, and the Bulls still lost.
  • Positive – Joakim Noah was extremely active on Sunday, grabbing a game-high 15 rebounds.
  • Negative – Joakim Noah is shooting 21.7 percent around the rim in the series. (Yes, that says, “around the rim”.)

Believe it or not, that’s just the beginning of Sunday’s madness.

The Bulls entered the fourth quarter, leading 68-61, and simply needed to win one final quarter for a 3-1 series lead.

Then, J.R. Smith happened.

Smith scored 11 of Cleveland’s first 14 points of the final period to give Cleveland a 76-73 lead with 6:05 left. Four straight Timofey Mozgov points later, Cleveland led 80-73 with 4:03 left in the game.

Rose did everything he could for the Bulls, scoring seven points in the final two minutes alone to help the Bulls make an improbable comeback inside the last four minutes.

Despite a horrid three-point attempt from Rose with 1:01 left, Jimmy Butler would keep the hopes of another thrilling win at the buzzer alive with a clutch step-back trey to cut the lead to 84-82 with 27 seconds left.

The Bulls forced a LeBron James turnover on a charge, Rose shook Iman Shumpert out of his shoes and tied the game at 84 with just under nine seconds left.

(Now, before we move forward, this is going to get crazy, so stick with me from this point.)

After Rose’s game-tying bucket, LeBron James brought the ball up the floor.

But, wait, what is David Blatt doing?

Is, is he calling for a timeout?

(The Cavaliers called two 20-second timeouts with 18.8 left during out-of-bounds plays with a 84-82 lead. They didn’t have a timeout left when Blatt tried to call for a timeout.)

Rule 12, Article A, Section I of the NBA rulebook, the Cavaliers should have been assessed a technical foul for Blatt’s mishap, but alas, we move on.

James brings the ball into the frontcourt, drives to the basket, tries to score through a lot of contact, and gets blocked with 00.8 left in the game.

But wait, there’s more!

With the officials reviewing how much time is remaining in the game, Cleveland basically gets a free timeout to design one final play to win the game, along with getting 00.7 seconds put back on the game clock.

And, with that final play, James hit a sensational shot from the corner over Butler and tied the series.

The officials aren’t to blame for the Bulls falling in Game 4. There’s no denying that they were terrible, but the Bulls were terrible in their own execution.

Tony Snell drained a three-pointer to give the Bulls a 68-57 lead with 42 seconds left in the third quarter. The 11-point lead was the biggest of the game for the Bulls.

After that shot, the Bulls shot 5-for-20 from the field.

Sunday was a tough break for the Bulls. They went from seizing complete control of the series, to now fighting for their season to continue in the biggest game of the season on Tuesday night back in Cleveland.

(Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of how Game 4 played out either, P.J.)

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