Playoff Bound

If you're part of the Bulls' marketing department, get ready to promote the annual See Red campaign.  If you're simply a fan, iron your red shirts and other Bulls wear.  Or if you happen to be one of the players and are reading this (lucky me, in that case), start modeling black game shoes.  The team that wasn't supposed to make the playoffs this year has clinched a berth.

Despite a 17-point loss to the Portland Trail Blazers Friday night, a New York loss to Phoenix made the Bulls the fourth team in the East to punch a postseason ticket.  The question now is whether they'll earn a seed that would give them home-court advantage in the first round.  As of this writing, they sit just one game back of the Raptors for the third seed, but only three games separate them from the Wizards, who currently hold the sixth spot.  The players and Tom Thibodeau will do everything in their power to go as high as humanly possible up the ladder.

One of the most unusual seasons we have seen from any team recently is in a place nobody said they should have been in.  Derrick Rose was lost for the season before Thanksgiving, leading to Luol Deng being traded shortly after the New Year.  People started waiting for the inevitable collapse that would put the Bulls in the draft lottery.  Instead, Joakim Noah stepped up his game higher than we thought possible, Taj Gibson became a candidate for Sixth Man of the Year and D.J. Augustin turned into a story every flailing NBA veteran hopes to accomplish.  Also helping were the continuations of Jimmy Butler's development and Tom Thibodeau's refusal to let his team wave a white flag.

The offense is nowhere near championship-caliber and no true superstar on this team exists.  However, the defense is as good as it has been during Thibodeau's tenure and everyone continues to battle as if they'll never play basketball again when the contest has ended.  The naysayers will tell you it's all for naught since conventional NBA wisdom says the makeup should be a message to stop shooting for unattainable goals.  As we've learned recently though, none of the players or coaches will give in to that and are looking to write their own chapter.  Sure, it won't have the ending we're all hoping for, but at least we have some exciting action to look forward to.

The battle for seeding continues tomorrow when the Bulls begin a home-and-home series in Boston against the Celtics.  A win would put the Bulls back at .500 in road games.  If improvement starts in any area, it might as well be that.  They know it, and you should too.