45 Game Four Bulls Heat Takeaways

Man alive, these Conference Finals do not look like they are going to give us a lot of long series drama, do they? Miami held home court to go up 3-1 tonight, with the opportunity to send the NBA into a prolonged delay that would qualify as a minor lockout. But let's get into tonight's war...



45) Derrick Rose seems to have lost faith in Carlos Boozer, which means Derrick Rose seems to have an accurate view of Boozer's abilities

44) At some point, the Udonis Haslem media love just gets unseemly

43) Joakim Noah played with much more energy, fewer fouls, and less slurring

42) When the Heat offense becomes a James iso at the end of the clock, they get a lot more defensible

41) LeBron James finally had that earth-shaking chasedown block that he specializes in, but it didn't actually change the momentum

40) Boozer had the cherry picker dunk of the year off a Noah steal and assist, so much that his own teammates gave him grief over it

39) Making matters even worse for Kyle Korver is the fact that no Heat player wants to be the guy that missed while he was defending them, so they are all bearing down

38) Rose had a teleportation dunk and continuation on Mario Chalmers, mostly because Rose is so fast that he was dunking before the ref could blow the whistle... and then he dunked over Joel Anthony, just to show the world that he had a gear past that

37) Miami might be the only team in the history of the Association that can stay in a game against a quality opponent when they have very few assists

36) If Boozer could actually jump, he might be able to get numbers against good defenses

35) The idea that Mike Miller is getting minutes due to his rebounding staggers the imagination

34) James might have more timeouts after dunks than anyone else in the game

33) At some point, a pick and roll for Rose just means that there are more guys near him, and a greater chance that he's giving the ball to someone who isn't as good as he is

32) Technical fouls can't be called for arguing on out of bounds calls

31) I might have been dreaming or drunk, but I swear I saw Mike Miller making a couple of threes

30) It's getting harder and harder to see how Kyle Korver isn't the worst player in the league

29) Heat Fan really marks out for LeBron doing post whistle goaltending

28) From minute to minute, it's hard to see how either of these teams can stay with, or score on, the other

27) Given Rose's hops and the importance of the game, getting him his usual rest didn't seem all that important

26) Miami was outscored by a ton in the paint and was, well, still in the game somehow

25) Tom Thibodeau has perfected the hands in exasperation foul call reaction

24) Never in the history of the Association have so many good offensive players been so interested in making each other look so bad

23) We really have reached he point where anyone who doesn't go down as if shot on contact is being chastised as selfish and stupid

22) The Bulls finally realized that the Heat have no point guard, and hence, should be pressured a lot

21) Seriously, the idea that Mike Miller has spent 90+ games playing possum to set up this emergence and moment is spectacular deviousness

20) Honestly, the Heat couldn't close out games in the regular season, and it was a big problem

19) Even when Boozer plays well and Taj Gibson does not, Bulls Fan doesn't really want to see Boozer out there

18) Rose's MVP card for ref calls is clearly regular season only, and he picked a really bad time to miss a free throw

17) If you want to skip the first 3 hours of these games, you pretty much can -- they aren't going to blow each other out

16) The Heat really aren't supposed to be able to win a game where Miller nearly outscores Dwyane Wade

15) The idea that James got whistled for a charge with less than ten seconds left in a tie game at home tells me the NBA wants this series to go long

14) We can pretty much forget the idea that Chicago has the better bench at this point, seeing how none of those guys showed up at all

13) Rose shooting fallaway jumpers in crunch time really isn't making Heat Fan too scared

12) It's hard to see how either of these teams gets to 100 without overtime

11) Bosh's continued late game heroics may be the most surprising thing in a wildly surprising playoff season

10) In the final analysis, the Bulls just got worn down by too many minutes on the starters, and too many fouls to defend to the full extent of their ability

9) Deng's exhausted inbounds turnover, and Rose's driving turn 30 seconds later, spoke volumes, all of them ending with sadness

8) Here's something you couldn't have even bet on: Erik Spoelstra outcoached Thibodeau

7) If James had defended this way against Rajon Rondo in last year's playoffs, the NBA is a very, very different place today

6) There may be something to the theory that Miami has a fifth gear, and Chicago does not

5) Chicago picked a really bad time to finally lose three games in a row

4) Like Noah or not, there's absolutely no quit in the man

3) For a bunch of prima donna party glory boys, the Heat play insane defense and sure do like to dive for loose balls

2) This series may not be over yet, but Chicago's not winning

1) Heat Fan spent the last six seconds of the game chanting at Charles Barkley, because that's their priority