Looking For a Second Quarter

I could spend this whole post lamenting on a bad weekend for the Bulls and everything that went wrong.  Instead, there's one issue I'd rather hammer home and it often gets overlooked in basketball.  In the second quarter of the two losses to the Clippers and Trail Blazers, the Bulls were outscored 63-38. 

They didn't have the manpower to keep up with Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and the rest of the Lob City crew, so I'll cut them a little slack for that game.  I saw none of it, but I viewed a good chunk of last night's game in Portland.  The Bulls took a slim lead in the second half, but the Blazers came roaring back and put the game away late in the fourth quarter.  Don't let that 102-94 final fool you.  A Bulls run in the final minute made the contest look closer than it was. 

Looking at the box score, I initially had trouble finding a clear cut reason why they lost.  Joakim Noah was two assists shy of a triple-double and the teams were close in most statistical categories.  Finally, I saw the 28-13 score between the teams in that second quarter.  While working, I was able to glance at the TV from time to time and saw the score get out of hand.  It's somewhat a miracle the Bulls had a lead at all.

The late Norm Van Lier often said that to win an NBA game, you need to play "48 minutes of intensity."  Maybe it's travel lag, maybe it's being away from the United Center for a long period, or maybe this is just the result of a team without its best finisher.  At any rate, the recent slide in the 12 minutes leading up to halftime can't be pleasing to Tom Thibodeau.  He rides his players hard and expects nothing less than their best effort.  We'll never know what he said during the last two breaks, but my money is on a lot of obscenities flying in that locker room.

What the Bulls need to realize is that there are some teams in this league that can shoot the ball, another reason for the offensive outbursts by the last two opponents.  Maybe more pressing is we could be starting to see teams who are all too happy to take advantage with Derrick Rose not on the floor.  We knew it was coming.  The Circus Trip seemed to be a perfect place for it to begin. 

The Bulls will have to make some adjustments if they want to erase this weekend's memories.  It starts with playing the second quarter like it's the fourth.  If you fall too far behind early on, any late run is for naught.  Even if you take the lead during said run, it can evaporate quickly because you didn't keep points off the board earlier.  Thibodeau needs to emphasize all of this as his team prepares for Houston.  Wednesday will show what they learned.  Will it result in a win?  Hopefully.  And they should find a way to stop James Harden while they're at it.