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It was another hard-fought season of Chicago Bulls basketball, with the team holding its own despite losing its marquee player and trading away a longtime contributor as well. Tom Thibodeau once again worked his magic with this seemingly doomed roster, and the Bulls somehow end up having home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Perhaps most astonishingly, it very much seemed that other teams in the Eastern Conference were doing their best to avoid having to play Chicago in the first or second round.
That speaks volumes of the type of opponent that the Bulls can be. Even though the offense is lackluster (to put it kindly), the defense remains the selling point and now win against this team comes without being earned through 48 minutes of grueling work. So does that translate to a championship threat? Of course not.
And there's sort of the rub with being a Bulls fan. We're becoming more and more used to this annual collection of scrappy underdogs overachieving without ever really being realistically in the title conversation. The signings and moves at the end of the year is fueling speculation that GarPax may be maneuvering to acquire Carmelo Anthony during the off-season, which certainly sounds good on paper. The problem it that we've been down this fantasy free agent road before, and the results rarely work out in Chicago's favor.
For now, I'll try to enjoy the prospect of the Bulls giving an Indiana or even a Miami fits, but it remains just about impossible for me to truly build up any real hopes about a Larry O'Brien Trophy being presented to this basketball team in June. They try hard and leave it all on the floor, sure, but it's only fair to admit that there remains a very real ceiling for the squad.
It appears I downloaded a virus or seven in my attempt to watch the NHL Playoffs on my computer, so the usual images, commentary, and whatnot will be added later.
To three-peat or not to three-peat? The Miami Heat's regular season has been very reminiscent of the two three-peats I saw the Chicago Bulls accomplish in the 1990s, as the defending champions spared themselves of pushing too hard in the regular season in order to make sure everyone would be healthy for what would be a fourth consecutive trip to the NBA Finals. While the Eastern Conference was something of a joke for much of the year, the way the pairings ended up no longer means the Heat will just coast to another title. Chances are good Miami will have two fairly difficult series before they even get to deal with whomever comes out of the West.
If nothing else, we've at least got some reason to pay a little more attention before June now.
My first attempt at guessing the final spots of all 30 teams in the new four division format did not go particularly well, having only placed a mere six teams correctly. I correctly identified 11 of the 16 teams that will be participating in the playoffs, but needless to say, there were some disappointments (Ottawa, Edmonton) and surprises (most notably Colorado, winners of the same Central I had the Avs finishing last in). My fairly poor track record thus far doesn't exactly make me feel particularly confident about how I'll fare in predicting the outcome of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The new playoff format certainly seems likely to take a solid first step toward building the intense, bitter division rivalries that the league is hoping for. There's bound to be some very competitive contests over the next couple of weeks, and there's reason to believe that nearly every one of the 16 teams has a chance of moving on to the next round. Of course, there's also the reality that a number of teams that seemed like possible Cup contenders will be gone after this first round (San Jose-Los Angeles, St. Louis-Chicago).
Still, there's going to be a compelling story or two develop somewhere in these playoffs, and I'm giddy at the thought of getting off work tomorrow evening to feast on playoff hockey all night. And the night after that. And the ... well, the wife's probably going to be home after more than a week out of town, so that'll be a little more tricky justifying any series not involving the Blackhawks. While I was initially thrilled to think that our daughter was due a couple weeks after the Final likely concludes, I was reminded today that all four of the children her mother delivered arrived two to four weeks early. So whereas I once joked that my wife would go into labor as soon as Chicago went into overtime in a deciding Stanley Cup game, that now seems even more likely. For now though, I'll just try to enjoy as much of the opening round as I can.
For every one of the previous three quarterly updates, the Blackhawks had been holding off the St. Louis Blues for first place in the Central Division. The largest lead at any quarter's conclusion was a mere four points and the leads at the time were always somewhat misleading because St. Louis always had at least a couple games still in hand. It was shortly after that last update when the Blues boasted the biggest of all trade deadline acquisitions in star Sabres goalie Ryan Miller that St. Louis finally overtook the 'Hawks for the top spot in the Central and appeared well on their way to contending for the Presidents' Trophy. However, the month of April was not kind to the Blues, concluding the season by losing six in a row and, in the process, conceding the division title to a plucky Colorado Avalanche squad that I had originally forecast to finish in the cellar (so, you know, "oops").
With Detroit now a member of the Eastern Conference, St. Louis has certainly felt like the new regional rival for Chicago. In that sense, it's only appropriate that they meet in the first round of the NHL's newly revamped playoff system that wants to hype up division rivalries. The Blackhawks finished the year with the team's two biggest stars, Toews and Kane, sidelined by injuries. The Blues have also been dealing with their share of health woes, as Derek Roy, Vladimir Sobotka, T.J. Oshie, Brenden Morrow, David Backes, and Barret Jackman were all listed as "day-to-day" in the final two weeks.
Of course, paralysis, amputation, or decapitation are the only types of injuries that would cause a player to miss the playoffs in the NHL. Everybody's going to be banged up when the race for the Cup kicks off Wednesday night, but I don't see how 'Hawks fans cannot feel great about the team they drew. Whereas the last few weeks were fret with concern about how Chicago was ever going to be able to score on Colorado netminder Semyon Varlamov (boasting a stunning .960 save percentage against the Blackhawks this year), the Blues suddenly look like a complete mess and an ideal opponent for last year's Stanley Cup Champions to begin their title defense against. I might not be so optimistic a couple weeks from now, but for the time being, I'm pretty damn happy.
