2017 NBA Playoffs: Chicago Bulls vs. Boston Celtics, Game 3 Analysis

The Chicago Bulls got some bad news before Game 3 on Friday night with Rajon Rondo’s injury, but the scene switched to Chicago and the Bulls with a 2-0 lead. Here’s what took place in Game 3.

Everything was coming up Chicago Bulls prior to the day of Game 3.

The Bulls took not just one, but both of the first two games in their first-round series with the Boston Celtics and headed home with a 2-0 lead on the Eastern Conference’s top seed.

Unfortunately for the Bulls, Rajon Rondo injured his right thumb in the Game 2 victory and would be ruled out indefinitely after the MRI results showed that Rondo had a small fracture in his shooting hand thumb.

The show had to go on for the Bulls on Friday night in Game 3 with Jerian Grant taking the reigns from Rondo as the starting point guard.

Could the Bulls do the unthinkable and take a commanding 3-0 series lead, putting them just one win away from advancing to the second round? Let’s take a look at what went down at the United Center in Game 3.

First quarter

The last time one of the NFL’s best wideouts was in Chicago to see Jimmy Butler play was Antonio Brown back in January when the Bulls inexplicably lost to the Atlanta Hawks, which led to the shade-throwing and the Instagram post from Rajon Rondo.

On Friday night, Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas was in the house (in Bulls colors) supporting Butler.

It appeared that the football player curse would continue in the first few minutes of the contest. The Bulls missed six of their first seven shots and found themselves down 10 for the first time in the series with 7:21 left in the opening frame.

Still, it wasn’t worse than Rajon Rondo’s look for Game 3.

As for the the visitors, the shots they were missing in the first two games were falling early, as they made four of their first six attempts from 3-point range, including a pair from Avery Bradley to really get the Celtics going.

After the early timeout from Fred Hoiberg, the Bulls got a couple buckets at the rim from Dwyane Wade and Jerian Grant, but things didn’t change much for the Bulls, as they found themselves down 11 and a 4-for-15 shooting start staring at them on the scoreboard.

Hoiberg looked to his reserves late in the first quarter in Paul Zipser, Michael Carter-Williams, Bobby Portis and Cristiano Felicio, but the Celtics just kept finding the open man and hitting from the perimeter. (They made seven of their first 10 attempts from 3.)

Oh, and MCW did this, which … yeah … pretty much sums up the Bulls in the first quarter of Game 3.

In the end, Boston made seven of their 11 3-point attempts, the Bulls missed 13 of their 19 shot attempts, had five turnovers and Jimmy Butler didn’t score until the final two minutes of the quarter.

That’s bad, right?

After one, Boston led it, 33-15

Second quarter

Isaiah Thomas opened the second quarter with back-to-back buckets for the Celtics and the lead ballooned to 20 for Boston inside of the first couple minutes.

The Bulls started the quarter with MCW, Wade, Zipser, Portis and Felicio, which … if you’ve watched the Bulls this season, you know that non-Butler lineups usually struggle. They did.

But, thanks to a couple of turnovers from the C’s, Wade got the unit going a little bit with a tough fadeaway bucket and a great dish to Portis for the assist to trim the lead to 14 and force a timeout with a mini 8-2 run.

Also, Isaiah Thomas wanted no part of Cristiano Felicio and it was rather funny.

As bad as the unit was to start things, they did find a nice groove as the quarter moved along, even going on an 11-0 run to trim the lead inside single digits. A big turn came when Portis had an open 3 to cut the lead to just six, he missed, MCW got hit with a hard screen on the other end and Al Horford got an easy dunk to push the lead back up to double digits.

Despite the struggles, the Bulls continued to chip away and chip away with just 1:51 left in the half, the lead was just six with the Bulls on 19-5 run.

(The Celtics made 7-of-11 from deep in the first quarter? They were just 1-of-7 in the second frame from long range and 5-of-22 in the quarter.)

In that final 1:51, the Bulls got the lead all the way down to three after a Nikola Mirotic triple from the left quarter and finished the quarter outscoring the Celtics by 15 (26-11) and went into the break with momentum.

Dwyane Wade was awesome in the first half, picking up the slack for Butler, who missed seven of his eight shot attempts in first 24 minutes. Wade had 14 points, three assists and this wonderful block on Avery Bradley before halftime.

Down by 20 at one point, the Bulls trailed at halftime, 44-41

Third quarter

After a great finish to the first half, the Bulls started the second half poorly. Boston jumped out to an 8-2 start to push the lead back out to nine points after Thomas drained his first two shots out of the restricted area in the game (both 3-pointers).

The Bulls even busted out the Dunkin’ Donuts race earlier than usual to get the crowd back into it, which of course was won by Dashing Donut because you always put your money on the donut.

Boston started the quarter on a 14-6 run and pushed the lead back out to 11 points once more. Despite the early quarter struggles again, everyone was told that Ben Gordon was in the house, so things weren’t so bad for the Bulls.

The Bulls tried to claw their way back into the contest yet again and like before, it was Dwyane Wade who would be the catalyst. Mirotic hit a 3 to get the crowd up again, but it was Wade’s block on Jae Crowder to spark the break.

But, the Bulls had a few issues on their hands:

• Jimmy Butler couldn’t find ways to score on Avery Bradley at all up to this point
• Isaiah Thomas (four assists and two triples in the quarter) and Al Horford killed the Bulls in pick-and-roll sets in this frame, bringing Robin Lopez away from the paint
• Jerian Grant and Michael Carter-Williams were both just plain bad

With 2:22 left in the quarter, it was 69-54 Celtics (25-13 for the quarter) and the Bulls were shooting 35.1 percent from the field. Everything was going wrong.

Despite a six-point run from Butler at the end of the quarter, the Bulls still found themselves down 13 to start the final quarter.

After three quarters, the Bulls still trailed it, 76-63

Fourth quarter

The Bulls needed a hot start to the final frame and unfortunately for them, it didn’t come. Boston started the quarter scoring nine points in the first four minutes and pushed the lead out to 16 points with the Bulls looking all kinds of flustered.

In the first half of the frame, the Celtics rode their bench unit and it worked (and got Isaiah Thomas a long rest). With 6:31 left, it was 88-73 Boston and by this point, the Bulls had given up 15 3-point makes in 32 makes.

Terry Rozier would eventually make it 16 (and then 17) makes from deep for the Celtics and the game was pretty much over. With 4:11 left, it was back to a 20-point lead for Boston.

Game over.

Next: After two good performances in Boston, Rajon Rondo breaks his right thumb

Next game

Game 4 between the Bulls and Celtics will be on Sunday night in Chicago. Tip-off time is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. CT on TNT (which is the same scheduling as Game 1).