No need to pinch yourself, unless that’s your thing. The Chicago Bulls really made the playoffs and they’ll be tipping off against the Boston Celtics, the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, on Sunday evening. Time to look at how the teams matchup.
Sure, Chicago is in the playoffs. They’re also the eight-seed, aka Last Team In. Their reward for grinding out the very last playoff spot on the very last night of the regular season is facing the No. 1-seeded Boston squad that they dueled with to varying degrees of success throughout the regular season.
Also, this is the team that rumors incessantly persisted would trade for Jimmy Butler. You know, the whole Danny Ainge makes a fair trade kind of thing – which would never actually happen.
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It doesn’t matter how both teams got here, they’re here. And there are many intriguing questions, but I’ll answer one very intriguing and totally not difficult questions – in Brad Stevens, Boston has the better coach by a country mile. I have no idea what a country mile is, but I’m sure Fred Hoiberg does. I’m also sure that Fred counts the countries miles back to Ames, IA. That helps him fall asleep at night when he can’t stop seeing Dwyane Wade‘s face or hear Rajon Rondo’s voice late at night.
Let’s run down some of the keys to this matchup.