Going into their last game of the long 7 game road trip, the Bulls were poised to continue their solid play that had already earned them a winning record for the road trip. For the most part, their solid play continued, but the result was a very tough loss to Dallas 115-114 in overtime.
Unfortunately for the Bulls, they ran into one of the elite players in the league on a night where he couldn't be stopped. Dirk Nowitzki dominated all game with 44 points, 14 of them coming in the overtime period. Sometimes, even when your team plays well, there are players on the opposition who can literally take a game over by themselves. Although Dirk is a little past his primes, he can still fill that role for Dallas on any given night.
A bright spot for the Bulls was Tyrus Thomas continuing his good play with 23 points and 12 rebounds. They have been looking for solid play from a big man all year, and Thomas has been stepping up as of late. He even hit two three pointers in a row at the end of the game to pull the Bulls within 113-111 and the final score of 115-114.
The Bulls remain in playoff contention only 2 games out of the final playoff spot with conference foes Detroit and Miami coming to the United Center this week.
As for the rest of the NBA world, the LA Lakers are stating their case to be the favorite going into the post-season. They have a league best record of 41-9 and are currently riding a 6 game winning streak. More impressive is their last two victories came on the road against the other two teams vying for the league's best record — Boston and Cleveland.
The Lakers trailed almost the entire game against Boston, but were able to pull off a stunning victory in overtime to silence the racuas crowd in the Garden. Three nights later, they trailed the Cavs by 10 at halftime before dominating the 2nd half and winning 101-91.
The Lakers are quickly becoming the team to beat in the NBA, and have been winning without Andrew Bynum again. Luckily for the Lakers, this time they will have Bynum in the post-season, and that is just scary.
Photo: (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The Lakers-Cavs game over the weekend was ridiculously entertaining and I cannot help but figure that the storyline in the NBA this year has shifted from the Celtics to the Kobe-LeBron rivalry and comparisons.
ReplyDeleteWith so much attention around LeBron heading into the 2010 free agent period, the Cavs home streak and everything else have become just that much more interesting.
Also, don't know if you caught Lamar Odom on Rob Dyrdek's new show on MTV Sunday night, but he seems like a pretty cool dude.