Chicago's defensive strategy for Game 2 was totally crushed by the Heat, who were aggressive and completely outplayed the Bulls in all the four factors: eFG% 66.4% vs 41.4%; TO rate 18.5% vs 20.7%; Offensive rebounding 33.3% vs 26.7%; FT% rate 41.4% vs. 27.6%. In Game 1, it was evident that Chicago's gameplan of running back quickly to defense in order to prevent Miami's transition game. Thanks to that, the Bulls had just 9 offensive rebounds, with 7 of them coming from Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson. Their wings were more worried in running back to defense than crushing the boards and truth must be told, Miami scored just 9 fast break points with 5-12 FG and 0.93 PPP in transitions. What about in Game 2? Well, Miami crushed the Bulls with 20 fast break points and 8-12 FG + 1.25 PPP on transition plays! Not only the Heat killed the Bulls in transition, as they also completely outplayed on half court. The Bulls' rim defense has been great all season long (with Noah on court of course), but Miami shot 24-30 FG at the rim in Game 2! That's 80% FG!
It will be up to Chicago to minimize these damages tonight on Game 3 at least in one of these two areas if they want to be competitive tonight. Miami's ball pressure defense has been the key on this series, as they are creating a lot of turnovers that they are consequently using to score easy points. Chicago averaged a nice mark of 13.1 turnovers per game in the series against Brooklyn, but they committed 16 and 19 turnovers in the first two games of this series. Miami's strategy won't be any different tonight, but at least the Bulls should be better prepared to face the high pressure from Miami. On the other hand, Coach Thibodeau also needs to find a way to make Carlos Boozer somewhat relevant against Miami. In the four games of the regular season, Boozer was great against Miami with 19ppg, 54.4% FG and 15 rpg! But he has been useless on offense so far on this series! He needs to be more aggressive to help his team on offense.
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