Throwback: '11 ECF, #1 seed, #1 defense, MVP Rose start playoffs 9-3

[TheCorporation]

That Bulls team was stacked! I did not see a backdoor sweep by the Heat after they lost game 1 by 21. LBJ shackled the MVP down the stretch as well. Does MVP Rose hate LeBron for this?

#1 seed
#1 defense
MVP Rose
Start playoffs 9-3
Then lose 4 straight

[Roundball_Rock]

People forget the talent on that team. Rose, Noah, Boozer, Deng, Korver all made all-star teams in their careers and the first three all-NBA teams.

The Bulls dominated the Heat in the regular season so I hoped they would win but in retrospect the playoff result makes sense. It is rare for a team to win a chip in their first year of contention (the Bulls were the 8 and 7 seeds respectively in the previous two years). The Heat themselves failed to win it all that same year. (2008 Celtics are the one modern example of a team winning overnight.)

2012 is when they could have given the Heat a run. They again had the best record in the sport. People like to go on and on about the "weak East" but the Heat had trouble coming out the East in 2012 (OKC meanwhile crushed the WC playoffs). The Pacers were up 2-1 in the second round and the Celtics 3-2 in the ECF. Even in Game 7 the Celtics were up late in the game. If these inferior teams did that well, you would think the Bulls would have actually beaten them.

[LostCause]

As an actual Bulls fan I don't recall feeling the team was "stacked", not after the Decision and compared to the Heat, Spurs, Celtics, Lakers etc. Most our teams were overachievers, and we were lucky in regards to having Thibs' defensive system which the rest of the league hadn't caught up to yet so it gave us an advantage. We had solid players who played hard and scrappy but our talent wasn't comparable to Miami or Boston during those years. Our best advantage against a team like Miami was our bench, which we had a pretty good one, but against a team with 2 MVP-level players and another perennial All-Star it wasn't good enough to swing a series, especially considering how some of them disappeared in the playoffs (Korver personally being the most disappointing for me, as we really needed his shooting)

Korver almost never played well in the playoffs with us. Not sure why he was brought up. He had one good series (1st round against Indy in 2011) but he literally disappeared in every other one in 2011 and 2012. Here's an article (https://www.espn.com/chicago/nba/columns/story?columnist=isaacson_melissa&id=6571977) about his struggles since the Indy series. Boozer was Boozer, empty calorie stats and 0 defensive effort. A lot of fans preferred he get benched for Gibson, who at least provided a modicum of defense and imo at least fit better with Rose. Deng, Noah and Rose were really good and fun though they were most definitely a tier or 2 below the Wade/Bosh/LeBron trio. The Atlanta series started showing we were going to be in a lot of trouble as Rose's "help" started disappearing offensively. We won that series off the back of Rose averaging like 30 per game. Keith Bogans, who was our starting SG if folks remember, was literally a nonfactor on both ends and it still boggles my mind why he was even starting, possibly because he was a solid 3-pt shooter but he didn't shoot them enough to really provide much spacing and warrant starting imo. So if Rose wasn't doing Jordan-like numbers we knew we'd be in trouble and unfortunately the help played even worse against Miami than they did ATL and Rose was able to be trapped/doubled and largely rendered very incredibly inefficient.

2012 really wasn't much better. Rose was injured for most of that season then tore his ACL in the playoffs. So even before the ACL tear he was never at the same level he was the year prior which made it hard to see how we'd do. If we were 100% healthy and Rose took his game a step forward, maybe we could've gave Miami a more competitive series (Just by virtue of replacing Keith Bogans with Rip Hamilton) but even then I still doubt we'd win, Miami was also better by adding Shane Battier that year who was huge for them on both ends in the playoffs. Much moreso than Rip for Chicago

To the point of LBJ shutting down Rose, that was most definitely a team defensive effort and they did it excellently given their personnel. As said, unfortunately, Rose didn't really have anyone that could step up

[Roundball_Rock]

Boozer was a huge bust. He was a consistent 20/10 guy in Utah but didn't do much in Chicago, especially during that ECF. Gasol is the only major free agent signing that seems to have panned out for the Bulls.

[Axe]

That Bulls team was stacked! I did not see a backdoor sweep by the Heat after they lost game 1 by 21. LBJ shackled the MVP down the stretch as well. Does MVP Rose hate LeBron for this?

#1 seed
#1 defense
MVP Rose
Start playoffs 9-3
Then lose 4 straight
Stop making wacky threads for easy money, you bummer.