Carlos Boozer labored with a toe injury while Bulls fans jeered him and called for backup forward Taj Gibson. Chicago coach Tom Thibodeau, however, stuck with Boozer.
“We need him,” Thibodeau said before Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Hawks. “He’s our most proven player in the postseason.”
It was a reminder that, though the Bulls had an outstanding regular season, they are relatively lacking in playoff experience.
Chicago won a league-best 62 games. Derrick Rose was voted MVP and Thibodeau was named coach of the year. The Bulls entered the playoffs with the sterling profile of a tough defensive team boasting a superstar talent.
Once the playoffs started, Chicago wheezed past eighth-seeded Indiana in the first round. The Bulls are tied at two games each with the underdog Hawks, who have significantly more experience in the playoffs.
Atlanta has scored 100 or more points twice. Rose has had one efficient scoring game, his 44-point outburst in Game 3. The Hawks used second-half surges and poised play in the final moments to win both games in the series against the Bulls, who dominated them during the regular season.
As the series shifts to Chicago for Game 5 on Tuesday night, it could be that Atlanta's playoff experience has provided an edge.
“The regular season and the postseason are two different animals," Hawks forward Josh Smith said. "Everybody says that and everybody knows that. We know what it takes to be effective; not saying they don't, but what we do have is a little bit more added experience.”
It wasn't always this way for the Hawks, who were cast as up-and-comers in the past three postseasons. After four consecutive playoff berths with essentially the same core group of players, the Hawks are trying to take the next step.
“When you have guys that have kind of been in the trenches during this time of year, certainly it helps you,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said. “Year after year you kept hearing about the Hawks being a young team. That's just not the case anymore.”
That's especially true in comparison to the Bulls. Before this series, Atlanta's top eight players had played a combined 8,175 minutes in the postseason with four logging as many as 1,156 minutes. Chicago's top eight players in the series had played 6,283 minutes before this series and only Boozer (1,835) and Luol Deng (1,004) had more than 750 minutes.
The Hawks have more experience playing together, too. Joe Johnson, Al Horford, Marvin Williams, Zaza Pachulia and Smith all played at least 30 postseason games together before this series.
For the Bulls, Joakim Noah and Rose had played 17 playoff games together. Deng and Gibson are the only other players to have played as many as 10 postseason games alongside those two before this series.
Not all of the postseason experiences for the current group of Hawks have been positive, especially in the second round: They were swept from the semifinals by Cleveland in 2009 and Orlando last year, the latter by an NBA-record margin 101 points.
“It definitely was a blessing and a curse,” Smith said. “The curse was us getting swept and being embarrassed; the gift is learning from that experience. Going into this postseason we didn't want to have any regrets and not put our best foot forward.”
The Hawks might have learned some lessons from those bad moments.
This postseason they've twice opened series with road victories, ended a nine-game home losing streak in the second round and are tied after four games of the semifinals for the first time since 1988. They won three close games against Orlando and two more against the Bulls.
“We've got guys who understand when it comes down the stretch, the last two or three minutes of the game, we really focus in and pay attention to details,” Johnson said. “We've been in tough battles; we've been in tough situations.”
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