Battling Bulls

Just had to steal that title from the Sun Times front page story about the scuffle between Del Negro and Paxson. But before I get into that, let's check in on the Bulls playoff battle. As I wrote last time, Bosh's injury left the playoff door wide open for the Bulls to limp through, and limp they are. After beating their wretched-looking competition, the Raptors, and getting playoff destiny in their own hands, they then tried their utmost to toss it away with a woeful double-overtime loss to the lowly Nets. That loss meant that the Bulls lost a season series (2-1) against one of the worst teams in basketball history. Fortunately, Toronto also lost, so the Bulls were still a half game ahead.

With Toronto owning the head-to-head tiebreaker and having two easy games left on their schedule, that meant that the Bulls would basically have to win their last two games to get into the playoffs. First up for them was Boston at home and the Bulls backcourt suddenly exploded offensively. Rose had 39 and Heinrich had 30, both season highs! No other Bulls scored in double figures, but they didn't need to! The Bulls stepped up big time amidst a mega-distraction and now only need to beat Charlotte tonight to make the 8th spot.

OK, now for the good stuff. Yahoo (stealing from the Sun Times reporter) said that Paxson tried to pick a fight with Del Negro after the Phoenix game over Vinny's extending Noah's minutes beyond his orders. Another source said that Del Negro wasn't so passive as the Yahoo story suggested and that the two had almost comes to blows before. My take on this is that we need to let these two duke it out! Charles Barkley picked Vinny over Paxson (although he first stated that neither one could fight) and I'm not going to argue with Charles. Maybe it is just wishful thinking because I'd love to see someone punch Paxson in the face.

Seriously though, if this is enough to tear Reinsdorf away from watching baseball games long enough to make a front office change, I'd say it is a blessing in disguise. Both Paxson and Forman need to go! How many years of ineptitude can the Bulls fans stand? (We're not talking about Cubs fans here.) As for Vinny, he's had two years and done about as well as one would expect given the team's talent. Obviously if they lose tonight, or even if they win and Reinsdorf once again sides with Pax, Vinny is going to get fired as soon as the season ends. While he isn't the greatest coach in the world, he almost certainly doesn't deserve that.

Interestingly, the word is that Vinny tried to get permission from Paxson (and remember that this is post scuffle) to extend Noah's minutes during that awful Nets overtime game. Paxson gave the OK, but Vinny didn't get the message until it was too late. That certainly must have angered both of them.

First up is Charlotte away though. A lot may hinge on whether Larry Brown wants to rest his guys before the playoffs or not. The Bobcats have somewhat surprisingly locked up the 7th spot and cannot move up, only because they would lose a tie-breaker with the Bucks, who are a game in front. There's no doubt the networks would much prefer the Bulls over a Bosh-less Toronto. Let the conspiracies begin!