Rocked in Cleveland

Watching the Bulls these last two games get throttled by Cleveland and Orlando, it's easy to get the impression that the players don't care very much. I don't think that's true, but the lack of effort is difficult to comprehend.

After trailing the Magic by as many as 33 points on Wednesday at the United Center, the Bulls should have been determined not to let it happen again, knowing they had a very tough task awaiting in Cleveland. But they sent the Cavs to the foul line four times in the opening 3:10 and fell behind 17-8.

The one sign of life came when they closed the gap to 4 points a couple of times, but trailed 32-17 by the end of the first quarter and never got back in it.

Thabo Sefolosha was the one guy who brought some toughness at the start of the game. It's difficult to tell whether or not he did a decent job guarding LeBron James, but James decided to lay back and pick the Bulls apart with his passing.

This strategy seemed to confound the Bulls' big men. They constantly failed to rotate on defense or paid no attention when a big man cut to the basket. They couldn't even recover in time to foul Ben Wallace. He scored a season-high 13 points and attempted 2 free throws.
Clearly, the Bulls don't have much unity right now. When the going gets tough, they fall apart and resort to individual play or stop hustling.

I can remember during my pickup ball heyday, nothing was more deflating than one guy on your team repeatedly turning it over or taking dumb shots. It's not one player messing up the Bulls, but they do seem to be get frustrated easily. I noticed players not bothering to sprint back on defense on more than one occasion against the Cavs.

Friday's Joakim Noah-Andres Nocioni verbal altercation isn't surprising and shouldn't linger. It sounds like Nocioni took exception to being corrected by Noah on a defensive assignment. The way the Bulls played in this game, no one seemed qualified to question anyone else's performance. But that's what good teams should be doing.

Noah picked it up in the second half to finish with 10 rebounds and 8 points, but wasn't very good early. Tyrus Thomas had 3 steals, but didn't offer much basket protection. Aaron Gray played just 13 minutes, but I wonder why they didn't go to him in the post against the much-smaller Wallace. Gray hit a hook shot over Wallace to make it 6-6 in the first quarter, then attempted 2 more shots the rest of the night.

As they say, winning cures all problems and the Bulls have a great opportunity now with four of the league's worst teams on their way to the United Center. There is no mystery to the Bulls playing well: Share the ball on offense, protect the lane on defense and hope Derrick Rose will be anxious to forget about Friday's 3-point, 2-assist performance.

As an aside, the Cavs are still my pick to win the NBA title this season. LeBron seems as ready as he'll ever be and I don't see anyone stopping him.