Bulls close in on No. 1 seed in East
The Chicago Bulls have learned to deal with the frequent mood swings of an NBA season. The fans may not get through it so easily.
Concern that the Bulls were about to miss a chance to earn home-court advantage in the Eastern Conference playoffs grew after Chicago lost at Miami on Thursday, trimming the Bulls' lead over the Heat to one game in the loss column.
A couple of days later, the outlook changed again. While the Bulls beat Dallas 93-83 on Saturday at the United Center, Miami lost at home to Washington, which dropped the Bulls' magic number for clinching the top seed in the East to one. The Heat plays twice before the Bulls return to action on Wednesday at Indiana, so it's possible Chicago could have first place wrapped up before then.
Some teams would take that as a cue to rest their starters. However, the Bulls have already had players miss too many games, mainly guards Derrick Rose and Richard Hamilton, so they'll view the final two regular-season games as a chance to fine-tune the engine before the playoffs. They also get three days off, providing some rare practice time.
"We feel there's still work to be done," coach Tom Thibodeau said. "This is a chance for us to improve, try to clean some things up. For us, our perimeter players have missed a lot of games, so hopefully we'll have an opportunity to get those guys some work."
Forward Luol Deng said, "The next few days, we're going to get some practice in. I don't think it's really hard to play with each other. We know what everyone does. We have smart players. It shouldn't be that hard."
Last year, the Bulls finished the regular season on a nine-game winning streak but still had problems with No. 8 Indiana in the first round. This time, they've gone 8-6 over the last 14, but history has shown there is little connection between playing well late in the season and succeeding in the playoffs.
