Chicago Bulls At Miami Heat at 7pm ET on TNT | Golden State Warriors vs. San Antonio Spurs at 9:30pm ET on TNT
Tonight’s arguably our favorite night of the year thus far in postseason game-play featuring two marquee match-ups on the horizon. The Miami Heat, who’ve been resting up for the last week; will host the team that ended their 27-game win-streak, the Chicago Bulls; while San Antonio awakes from their coma to play Golden State.
The Bulls are coming off their emotional series clincher in Brooklyn over the weekend, in which they overcame a 3-1 hole to come back and advance. Their team captain, Derrick Rose who hasn’t played a single minute of action isn’t ruling out his “return” this round; but we’re not expecting to see him on the floor this year.
Rather than join his team on the court for “motivation,” some of us behind the scenes are feeling Rose’s presence around the team will be a distraction this series against their rivaled-Heat. If he doesn’t return back for game 3 against the Heat at home, we advise Mr. Rose to leave the Chicago Bull facilities and let the team be.
Continue after the jump for more analysis for tonight’s double header.
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LeBron James is taking the necessary steps into leading the Miami Heat to their second consecutive NBA title. Their process continues tonight at home against the Chicago Bulls. Since sweeping the Milwaukee bucks 8 days ago, the Heat have had plenty of time rest and recuperate themselves for a physical series and playoffs ahead.
Dwayne Wade is dealing with an injured knee, so the time off will definitely help him tonight. Yesterday LeBron won his fourth NBA regular season MVP, which he became the fifth player in league history to do so. The Bulls will be without obviously Derrick Rose tonight but Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich will also be missing out of action game 1 and potentially more.
Just like their game 7 win on the road against the Brooklyn Nets, we expect the Bulls to bring their defensive edge to South Beach and put up a respectable fight in tonight’s action. You should really take game 1 with a grain of salt and wait to see if Derrick Rose returns back before game 3 to make the series at least interesting.
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For the night cap of tonight’s Monday night action, we see another well-rested team at home in the San Antonio Spurs hosting the Golden State Warriors. The Spurs are 10-1 favorite, which makes us want to see the young Warriors give this series some light with San Antonio receiving unnecessary competition they do not want to see in this round before the West finals.
Warriors captain, Steph Curry has been shooting out his mind with nearly 50% from the field (45% from deep), as his hot shooting will have to continue if they want a legitimate shot at winning. Andrew Bogut will be the X-factor in our opinion for Golden State to stand a shot at this series. With their all-star big, David Lee still dealing with a torn hip flexor is in no shape to provide down low scoring for the Warriors.
If Bogut gets off to a good start or provides scoring down the stretch, the attention will shy away from the paint enabling Golden State to have more open shots. If Golden State isn’t hitting their shots, Bogut will have to play like his all-star level Milwaukee days if they want to stay in this series. The Spurs are in a good position avoiding the deep and lengthy Denver Nuggets, with most of the sports world expecting them to win this series in 5 (6 maximum).
With the Western conference having key injuries with the exception of Memphis, San Antonio’s positioned in a good position for a deep run and their first shot at a NBA title in 7 years. Depth and most of all their health will be factors into them winning the series. Manu Ginobili is finding himself in limited minutes for this post-season thus far and could see if extended playing time if the series goes longer than 5 games. We have another series featuring Golden State which is the one we’ll be paying closest attention to.