Chicago Bulls vs. Brooklyn Nets Analysis: Bulls clinch playoffs!

It’s the last game of the regular season. The Chicago Bulls made it through 82 games of good, bad, and ugly. All they needed to do was get one more win on Wednesday night against the Brooklyn Nets and it would be back to the playoffs for Chicago.

Well, it was a welcome back game for Dwyane Wade just a few days ago, now it’s Rajon Rondo’s turn.

Rondo returned from injury for this game and in true Fred Hoiberg fashion he wasn’t worked into the game. Nah, it was straight into the starting lineup for Rondo. Of course, that was a bad idea. Rondo picked up two fouls and was out of the game within four minutes. Before that, he did manage to knock down a 3-pointer, but it wasn’t the kind of start that he would have hoped for in his return to action.

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The game was awfully ugly for both sides until about halfway through the first quarter, and then the Nets were terrible and Chicago played like a team going for the eighth seed. A couple of Paul Zipser 3-pointers later, the lead was double digits. The Bulls went from a tie game to 27-13 after the first quarter. In classic Hoiberg fashion, even with a huge lead, Jimmy Butler and Robin Lopez played the entire first quarter.

Just a few minutes into the second quarter it became clear that Brooklyn wasn’t interested in playing basketball anymore. Chicago kept extending the lead and it was mostly uninformative stuff, just standard Bulls being Bulls. Jerian Grant only hit one of his first four shots, but had some rebounds an assist and two steals.

A theme that carried over from the game against the Magic, Chicago got a lot of steals that were purely the result of terrible, completely disinterested ballhandling by an opposing player. Very sloppy stuff, made the Bulls look good. The game was a route before the first half was over. Butler had 14 points to lead all scorers and it was 50-32 at the half.

As the second half started, Chicago started to push their lead. And that brought up a few good questions worth considering.

For me, it’s definitely Season 1. I really love The Wire, but the grit of Season 1 couldn’t be matched by subsequent seasons, even though they were also pretty good. Season 2 was not an option because it was the worst season.

Another great question. Matt Moore of CBSSports.com wrote an amazing piece breaking down the candidates for MVP this season. I’m all about Russell Westbrook for this award. He’s definitely the man.

In the third quarter, Wade dunked. At the beginning of the year, I would have said that he wouldn’t even make it to Game 82, much less dunk in it. That’s just the kind of year it’s been for Chicago.

Rajon Rondo tried an alley oop. No, not was the passer. He was on the receiving end and it was just a little too high of a lob for him to control. If it was a little more on line with him, it would have been good.

By halftime, it had become pretty clear that the Bulls were a lock for the playoffs. They’re making it in with a worse record than last season when they missed the playoffs.

Kind of crazy, but Hoiberg played Butler 31 minutes through the first three quarters, despite having a lead as large as 28 points. The more you don’t have Tom Thibodeau, the more you stay the same, Chicago.

Nikola Mirotic looked bad on offense, shooting 25 percent from the field, 2-for-8 from 3-point range.

Mirotic and Butler combined for a lot of steals, but I’m not sure that I buy it, given how generally sloppy and lazy Brooklyn was with the ball and how most of the “steals” I saw wouldn’t have happened three weeks ago.

The highlight was Zipser, who set a career mark for scoring with 21 points.

Seeing that the game was locked up, Butler didn’t play down the stretch and eventually Hoiberg pulled the rest of his guys. Denzel Valentine, Michael Carter-Williams, and Joffrey Lauverge finally got in on the action late in the fourth, joining Bobby Portis and Wade on the floor.

Anthony Morrow eventually got in on the action and Denzel Valentine made some 3s, but this game was already well over and I was listening to Lil B. Welcome to the playoffs, Bulls Nation.