Beaten By Spurs of the Moment

While my seats for tonight's game against the San Antonio Spurs were a little further away, I came to expect a win like I experienced this past Election Day.  After all, with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili nursing injuries, how competitive could this team be?  Yeah, they'd won 12 of their previous 13, but what could these second-tier Spurs do?  The answer was a whole lot and they had me, my dad and most of the rest of the United Center crowd leaving disappointed in a 103-89 final.

The remaining regular starters were the biggest offenders to my enjoyment.  Kawhi Leonard had a career-high 26 points and Danny Green put up 18.  Tiago Splitter shared his 16-point total with Gary Neal, who came off the bench.  It was a cruel reminder that the Bulls are not the only team in the NBA that can compete without its regular starters.  More likely though, the Spurs are just that good.

The Bulls' defense was badly exposed throughout much of this and the Spurs found easy layups and open threes.  The latter brought back memories of the Scott Skiles era when it was a common issue in Bulls defeats.  If the defense didn't get beat, the offense they faced went ahead and beat them anyway.  As a showcase of why they're likely to return to the Western Conference finals this year, the Spurs made a lot of tough shots, even with a defender in the shooter's face.

Conversely, San Antonio forced the Bulls into long possessions and shots they would never be comfortable with taking.  The fourth quarter provided plenty such examples.  Then of course, the turnovers piled up:  some by their own fault and others by virtue of a stronger opposing defense.  The Spurs had five steals in the second quarter alone and one turnover compared to the Bulls' 11 at halftime.  The final score in that count was 19-8.  Just take a look at the box score and you can see one of the more glaring reasons why the Bulls lost.

Nate Robinson, continuing to provide more scoring power than Kirk Hinrich has for most of the season, led the Bulls with 20 points.  Rip Hamilton shot pretty well, 8-for-11 from the field, and scored 16 on a night when he had to carry a lot of the offense.  At his age, it shouldn't have to come to that, though the boost in scoring average is nice.  Carlos Boozer scored six of the Bulls' first eight, but cooled off and finished with 14.  Luol Deng had a quiet double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds.  Deng's fellow All-Star, Joakim Noah, grabbed 15 boards, which would have looked bigger if his scoring output was higher than seven.

For all the talk about injuries and fatigue that have surfaced lately, for all the ways the Bulls contributed to their own defeat, the ultimate one was likely the Spurs are as good as that 41-12 record, the best in the NBA, dictates.  The aforementioned injured trio won't be around much longer as time is beginning to catch up with them.  For the rest of that roster, they're thriving under Gregg Popovich.  With a combination of a smart front office and the league's longest tenured coach, there's no reason why they shouldn't have made the playoffs every year since 1998, the longest active such streak.  They might not have enough to get past Oklahoma City this year, but they won't be a cakewalk either.  That veteran leadership, which guides the promising young blood, makes this roster lethal no matter who is sent out there or what building they enter.

The Bulls have a day to forget this before they wrap up the season's first half Wednesday in Boston against the Celtics.  That team's been hot since Rajon Rondo's season ended, but you still want to try and build some momentum going into the break.  Things don't seem so great right now.  A solid final game before Deng and Noah head to Houston will make things better.  They just gotta bring everything they've got.