By Beckley Mason
ESPN TrueHoop
Archive

The Chicago Bulls put the Eastern Conference's reigning bully in a headlock and pummeled the Boston Celtics into submission. The 97-81 win was a beatdown, a spanking, that all but assured the Bulls the Eastern Conference's top seed while leaving Celtics neck-and-neck with the Miami Heat for the No. 2 spot.

The vaunted Chicago defense smothered the league's most efficient offense with hard, consistent close-outs and disrupted play in the passing lanes while the Celtics' engine, Rajon Rondo, stalled. Looking disengaged and even telegraphing passes, the typically clever point guard's mental game broke down.

His frustrations were almost certainly a result of the exhilarating play of Derrick Rose, who carved the remaining letters of his name into the MVP trophy with each jet-propelled drive to the basket. Twice, Rose completely lost Rondo with hard crossovers. In the second quarter, he drew a loud "oooaaah" from the crowd when Rose duped Rondo by stepping back and left, eyeing the rim as though to shoot, then crossing back to his right and exploding through a thicket of green jerseys for the layup.

It was just one of a series of superlative plays that contributed to Rose's sterling stat line: 30 points on only 16 shots to go with eight dimes and a plus-24 plus/minus rating -- all game-highs for Chicago. Meanwhile, Rondo, who is second in the NBA in assists per game, could manage only six helpers and 3-for-10 shooting, and contributed to the Celtics' worst plus/minus rating. Those misses include a bricked, uncontested breakaway layup that revealed just how out of sorts Rondo and Boston were offensively.

The Celtics may never find a suitable answer for Rose, but looking ahead to a potential Eastern Conference championship series, it should be more disconcerting that the Bulls' defense so thoroughly dominated the game, forcing Boston into an anemic 38 percent shooting from the floor. And like the Celtics of the past few seasons, Chicago did it with rigorous attention to detail and an ethos of toughness that seemed to knock Boston on its heels, even as the game stayed close through the first two and a half periods.

If the two teams end up meeting a month from now, it will be up to Rondo to find the elusive seams and creases in Chicago's defense. Part of that task will involve forcing the Bulls to account for him as a scoring threat, something Rondo was incredibly reluctant to do Thursday night. If he can't recover his confidence in time for the playoffs, the Celtics will surely falter. Without the open shots for shooters like Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett that Rondo's penetration can create, the Celtics were often doomed to force offense against a dwindling shot clock.

It's telling that Paul Pierce, the Celtics' best isolation player, was their most effective scorer.

More than anything, Boston looked like an old, worn-down team being overwhelmed by a faster, more active and more confident Chicago club. And strangely, it was the young Bulls who looked like they had their identity and gameplan figured out, while the sage Celtics seemed unsure, still fitting the new pieces together.

To this dilemma, is the return of injured Celtics center Shaquille O'Neal really the answer?

Perhaps. After all, Jermaine O'Neal was surprisingly effective at both ends at the start of the game, and Shaq's absence left Glen Davis and Jeff Green to contend with the much longer players in Chicago's front line. Starter Carlos Boozer is easily Chicago's worst frontline defender, and playing Shaq would force Joakim Noah off Garnett, who seemed to struggle with Noah's size and physicality after a hot start.

But more important than matchups or shooting percentages was the emotional message delivered by the Bulls. They will not be bullied or intimidated; quite the opposite. Of course we've seen Boston teams look disheveled and vulnerable heading into the playoffs before. Yet again, they will enter the playoffs with plenty of concerns that their increasingly aged bodies may not be able to answer.

Meanwhile, Rose and the Bulls seem to be peaking. This game made clear that, in the East, the road to the finals runs through Chicago.

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