Why Wake a Sleeping Giant?

There were 3 minutes and 48 seconds remaining in an amazingly boring playoff game. The #8th seeded Pacers have just extended a lead they've held since the opening tip to 95-88. The advantage was stretched to 7 on a face-up jumper from the left side by Tyler Hansbrough over Carlos Boozer - who should have been playing much tighter defense!

That was the story for the Bulls most of the afternoon, trading buckets with a significantly less talented Indiana squad - and playing uninterested on the defensive end. Seriously, how the hell does this Indiana squad shoot over 50% for most of the game? Danny Granger (24 points) and Hansbrough (22 points) were killing the Bulls - often times with open shots!

But at 3:48 remaining, Hansbrough hit that jumper over Boozer and turned into a bird, flapping his arms like a parrot - bumping chests with teammates and mocking the crowd. Hansbrough was also mocking Luol Deng, who just a few minutes prior waved his hands to get the crowd moving, following an emotional play in which Derrick Rose was hacked - again.

It was almost as if the Bulls weren't awake - that this Noon start didn't give them enough time to shake the cowbwebs. But once things got emotional - with Deng leading the way, and then Hansbrough fanning the flames - the Bulls were back to looking like the team that won 62 regular season games.

Following Hansbrough's jumper - the Bulls went on a 16-1 run, including 10-0 to close the game! I never understand why - on the road - you'd give the home squad and their fans ANYTHING to get excited about. Wait until the game's over. It reminds me of Reggie Bush taunting Brian Urlacher in the NFC Championship Game at Soldier Field in January 2007 (http://bit.ly/gPDFVk).

Derrick Rose - unquestionably the league's best player this year - led all scorers with 39, scoring at will. He added 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 blocks and a steal. Deng had 18, Kyle Korver 13 and Boozer 12.

If the Bulls want to avoid being only the second #1 seed to lose to an 8-seed, they'd better bottle up some of that emotion and BRING IT for the rest of this postseason.