Maybe this is simply one of those home-court series where each team enjoys a decided advantage in its own friendly confines, as often happens in the NBA playoffs. The Washington Wizards had better hope so because they left Chicago on Wednesday night looking like a regular season team that somehow wandered into the playoffs. If the Wizards can win this series by overwhelming the Bulls with offense, then they'd better do it quickly . . . like in Game 3 Saturday afternoon in Washington.
As is, they're precariously close to being bludgeoned out of the playoffs after a 113-103 loss at United Center, in which they blew a 13-point first-half lead by playing summer league defense.
No team with able-bodied NBA players giving full effort should allow the Bulls to score more than 100 points in back-to-back playoff games since Chicago managed to average only 94.5 during the regular season. The Wizards were outplayed by second-stringers and end-of-benchers, and it mattered not a bit that Gilbert Arenas bounced back with a 39-point effort.
In Game 1 it was Andres Nocioni, who averaged 8.4 points during the regular season, scoring 25 points. And Ben Gordon, in the same game, doubled his season average and scored 30. Wednesday in Game 2, Kirk Hinrich, who averages 15.7, scored 34 points, all in the final three quarters. That's a pace at which Michael Jordan scores, not a guy who shot 39.7 percent for the season.
Coach Scott Skiles actually benched Hinrich, who missed his first two shots and got himself into foul trouble. Yet, Hinrich said he felt he couldn't miss once Skiles put him back because Jannero Pargo and Gordon were in foul trouble. Apparently, there's nothing like the sight of Wizards defenders to get a guy into his shooting rhythm. Hinrich hit 12 of his final 13 shots, including all five of his three-pointers. The Bulls shot 48.8 percent . . . 5 percent higher than their average during the season.
"We didn't expect them to make shots," Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan said.
So this comes down to one of two things: The Bulls are world-beaters at home who, between last week and the Wizards' arrival, learned how to shoot or . . . the Wizards can't stop anybody. We'll find out which Saturday and Monday in Washington.
The Wizards' Big Three -- Arenas, Antawn Jamison and Larry Hughes -- scored a total of 76 points, which ought to be enough but wasn't. It figured Arenas would come out firing and he did. After scoring just nine points in Game 1, Arenas had 13 in the first quarter in Game 2. He hit threes, shot medium-range jumpers, went to the basket strong and either made the basket or the foul shots. And the Wizards were all over the Bulls. From 10-2 it went to 14-4 to 23-10. Antawn Jamison, bothered by tendinitis in one knee, was just as active as Arenas that first quarter.
The Bulls were so desperate to generate scoring that Skiles inserted Gordon into the game midway through the quarter, much earlier than he'd like. And when Gordon struggled with his shot, Skiles went to his third shooter after Hinrich and Gordon: Pargo. So at 29-19 at the end of a quarter, the Wizards looked to be just fine. They were hitting shots, defending Gordon and Hinrich, and out-rebounding Chicago after getting handled on the glass Sunday. "I believe they gave us their best shot defensively in the first quarter," Gordon said, "but for whatever reason they didn't sustain it."
The Wizards even scored the first four points of the second quarter to take a 32-19 lead. It would be difficult to ask a visiting team in the playoffs to put together a better plan or execute it any more precisely for the first 12-plus minutes.
Perhaps the Wizards were underwhelmed by the team the Bulls put on the floor to not only stop the Washington run but to try to score enough points to cut into a 13-point first-half deficit. Okay, here we go: Pargo, Adrian Griffin, Eric Piatkowski, Othella Harrington and Tyson Chandler. That's no starters and five bench players. Well, Harrington starts now because Eddy Curry is out for the season. And in the case of Piatkowski and Griffin, third-stringers, guys who routinely aren't worthy of playing time during the regular season. Neither Griffin nor Pargo played in Game 1.
Griffin and Piatkowski, perhaps even Pargo, couldn't even make the Wizards.
Yet, those are the very players who took the Bulls from down 14 to within 35-33, causing a sleepy building to spring to life. Hinrich, who must have been stunned from all that rest he got in the first half, started knocking down shots like he was by himself in some speed-shooting drill. So after scoring four points the first seven minutes of the quarter, the Bulls scored 53 in the next 17 minutes to take a 57-50 halftime lead.
This is why the Wizards have no comeback for being accused of playing no defense. The Bulls aren't the Suns or Mavericks. Two of the team's four best offensive players -- Curry and rookie Luol Deng -- aren't even on the playoff roster. The Bulls know their weakness is shot-making. The only way they can score that many points in such a short time, even playing at home, is to do it against a team that is clueless on defense. "It works in our favor if we can get out and get some easy baskets," Gordon said.
The Wizards said they wanted this matchup.
The Bulls said they wanted this matchup.
After two games, we see who had a more accurate read on this series.
Eddie Jordan said afterward he told his team that only one thing is guaranteed in the playoffs: "They get two [at home] and we get two."
They'd better be sure that the difference between playing in Washington and playing in Chicago is the primary difference so far in this series because a change of venue is a lot easier to accomplish, apparently, than getting the Wizards to play defense for an entire game.
