All we asked as Bulls fans was that they not embarrass themselves trying to fight off elimination in Game 5. Instead, they saved their worst performance of this awful series for last. The defense was there for the most part, but the offense and especially the rebounding at the end let them down as the Wizards ended the season with a 75-69 win.
Washington got off to another admirable start, but the Bulls rallied in the second quarter to tie the score at 41 at halftime. From there, the points simply stopped coming and even though they threatened to overtake the Wizards several times, it proved too much of a task to handle. Hampering the progress was Taj Gibson's ankle injury late in the fourth quarter and Joakim Noah playing with a bit of a limp. Summing up the night was the final 1:30 in which the Wizards grabbed five - yeah, five - offensive rebounds, three coming on one possession that ended with no score and still a three-point game. Following that was Jimmy Butler missing a layup right off an inbound pass and that was all she wrote on the 2013-14 Bulls.
John Wall led all scorers with 24 points and shot 9-of-11 from the free throw line. Nene, fresh off his one-game suspension, cemented his status as MVP of the series by scoring 20, all of them coming on 10 field goals. Bradley Beal had 17 to support the notion that he and Wall are going to be a dangerous backcourt for the foreseeable future and the reason Washington becomes one of the better teams in the league. Marcin Gortat grabbed 13 rebounds as a final statement that he matches up well with Defensive Player of the Year Noah. It summed up a team with young scorers and veteran talent that did everything right in this series.
Butler and Kirk Hinrich, the latter of whom may have played his final Bulls game, each scored 16 to lead the home team. Before his injury, Gibson had 12 and his absence might have made a difference in the disastrous late sequence of Wizards offensive rebounds. Carlos Boozer, probably even closer to departing Chicago, finished just shy of a double-double with 10 points and nine boards. He did a decent job filling in for Gibson after he went out, at least for awhile, but like with everyone else wearing white, it wasn't enough to keep the season alive. Noah fittingly had 18 rebounds to close the best season of his career so far.
As I mentioned in my last post, I was a little surprised that me giving the edge in three of the five starting positions to the Wizards turned out to be right and even the other two were routinely superior to what the Bulls offered. This game, and this series, highlighted everything that people outside of the Bulls organization was saying throughout the year. Regular-season effort doesn't mean anything in the playoffs. Talent wins over all other elements of a team in the NBA. Head coaches can't be so stubborn that they'll only use the same eight or nine players game in and game out. Unless you have at least two outstanding players who can score, you're not going to win a championship.
Sadly, all of this isn't anything new for the Bulls. We said it last year, even when a shorthanded team made it to the second round. We will continue to say it until all of these issues are addressed. Hopefully, this is the offseason Gar Forman, John Paxson and Tom Thibodeau realize this is the time to do it. The ceiling is growing ever shorter on this particular group, even with Derrick Rose and the other core talent on the roster sticking around for a little while. The right changes in philosophy and new faces need to happen if a championship is indeed not far off.
I'll address everything in my season wrap in a couple of days, but for now, let's let the trials and tribulations of this past season soak in. It will give me, and everyone else, some time to collect thoughts and truly analyze what we just saw. As hard as it is to remember now, some great stuff happened this year. The wrap will remind you of that, but until then, see what you can recollect.
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