The Miami Heat’s winning streak has come to an end. This must be great news to Heat antagonists. If you’re a Los Angeles Lakers fan, you probably wanted the Heat’s winning streak to fizzle out, too. We definitely know that Pau Gasol is elated that the Lakers’ franchise “kept the streak”. In any event, Gasol should be more focused on the Lakers being an eighth seed.
Nevertheless, congratulations to the Chicago Bulls for beating the Heat and ending their streak. I expected it to be a game and the Bulls didn’t disappoint.
What I didn’t expect was the Bulls to actually put up a match and win without players such as Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and Rip Hamilton. Yes, I kid you not; the Heat were not able to tame the Bulls sans Rose, Noah, and Hamilton. If you’re not frowning your face at this, you should be because this poses a problem.
As mentioned, it ended a close game, but what would the game have looked like if Rose and Noah were in the lineup? I would say that this was a rather disappointing loss for the Heat. It’s one of those situations where they should have won the game, but didn’t.
Who is to blame? The Heat have no one to blame but themselves. They did not tame the Bulls. For instance, the Bulls dominated the boards, out-rebounding the Heat 43-31. More importantly, the Bulls played a great game offensively-again, without Rose and Noah. Let’s not forget that the Heat had another slow start.
LeBron James and the Heat can learn much from this disappointing loss. The first thing they need to do from here into the postseason is attack the boards-offensively and defensively. This trend that they have going on where they allow opponents to put up points in the first half and then rally in the second, has to stop. In addition, they need to grab more rebounds! This is what has played a threat to them winning games time and time again.