Chicago Bulls beat Indiana Pacers in a close contest

Jimmy Butler who had 27 points on the game was guarded well by Solomon Hill, but he still hit a critical 3 pointer to put the Bulls up by 2 with less than a minute remaining in the game.

Central division rivals

Central Division rivals Indiana Pacers and Chicago Bulls faced off in Indianapolis,Bankers Life Fieldhouse Center yesterday. The rivalry between the two teams dates back to the Michael Jordan era where his Chicago Bulls had fierce battles with Indiana led by Reggie Miller. The rivaly is still intact, but with less ferocity as the Bulls are considered to be one of the favorites to make the NBA finals, whereas Pacers are struggling to get to the eighth spot for the playoffs.

Chicago defense was working as a unit

It was a one-sided affair after the Bulls built up a 12 point lead in the half and continued to build on it to make it a 20 point game early in the fourth quarter. Indiana was unable to find their offensive rhytm as Bulls defense, one of the best defensive teams in the league, forced them to take tough shots. Noah and Gasol are pretty effective on both ends of the floor and they protect the paint quite well with their big bodies and long arms.

The key to open up Bulls’ defense is to move the ball, get them out of their position, but Indiana couldn’t do it for most of the game. Going to paint to West and Hibbert to post up Gasol and Noah didn’t work well and Indiana coudn’t stop Rose’s drives resulting into lay-ups or open shots for Dunleavy, Butler and Gasol. Frank Vogel defended Butler with Stuckey in the beginning of the game, then switched to Solomon Hill to slow Butler down and he did his job quite well.

Incredible comeback by Indiana

After scoring two points in the fourth quarter, Indiana’s bench – Watson, Miles, Copeland, Allen and Scola – started to lock down defensively, getting stops over and over again. Thanks to a Miles’ fadeaway 3 late in the shotclock and Copeland’s 9 points in the stretch, Indiana started to come back. Chicago Bulls missed 17 straight shots and Indiana came up with a 20-0 run to make the score 86-83 , coming back from 66-83. That run was simply incredible. Chicago Bulls turned to their starters in half way point of this run, but Indiana still didn’t let them score. Copeland scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, posted up Butler and Brooks to get easy buckets.

OFFENSIVE EXECUTION PROBLEM

After 86-83, Chicago stopped the bleeding with Gasol and increased their tone of defense. Indiana’s bench who came up with a tremendous effort on both ends of the floor started to get tired and they couldn’t execute well in the half-court offense. Due to that , turnovers started to emerge and even though Indiana stopped Chicago on the defensive end consistently, couldn’t find the lethal touch to put the nail in the coffin. As Frank Vogel said after tha game; "It's a different thing, executing in the final four minutes of a game than the first 44 minutes of the game," Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. "We had some poor possession on the offensive end. We were getting some stops, we just fell short." That’s exactly what happened out there.

Indiana missing George

Butler’s critical three put Chicago up by 2 with a minute to go and Vogel still rolled with his bench to close the game out. Once again, the bench failed and Watson’s open 3 point attempt with 0.5 seconds left on the clock fell short and so did Indiana. It could be argued that coach Vogel should have switched back to his starters after a point, but he chose to ride with his bench. He did that several times in the past, played his bench against the Spurs in San Antonio this season where Indiana lost a close game that they led.

Indiana is 11-21 on the season and still 3 games back from the 8th spot, as Chicago Bulls is still 4th in the east with a 22-9 record. Once again, Indiana tried to win the game by pure effort, defensive prowess and offensive execution, but came up short once again against a contender. Paul George is being missed in those types of games.