Since the end of All-Star Weekend and the resumption of the second half of the regular season, the Bulls youth team led by Doon has played more and more disciplined.

Even though the strong teams in the East and West began to sprint and go all out, the Bulls still maintained their winning streak, defeating the Heat, Cavaliers, Wizards, and Rockets successively.

However, Doon, as the boss of the Bulls, failed to win the Eastern Conference Weekly Honor for another consecutive time.

O'Neal's gorgeous stats and the Heat's outstanding record have added another accolade to the Player of the Month award.

Fast forward to March, and the lotto teams and playoff teams have become distinct.

Although the Bulls are a young team, they have also begun to consciously prepare for the playoffs and arrange some reasonable rotation plans.

is also because Iverson's 76ers fell out of the playoff team sequence ahead of schedule, and the 76ers have begun to mess up again, and Iverson, who is not convinced, can only spread his anger on scoring.

There's no way Doon is going to ruin the good chemistry and locker room atmosphere of the Bulls and the locker room for his own selfishness, in order to steal the scoring title from Iverson.

Therefore, Doon could only endure the pain and give up the plan to fight for the scoring title in advance, and continue to carry out the plan of averaging a triple-double per game to the end.

Over time, the Bulls will grow stronger.

Then, with the team's pie unable to continue to grow bigger, Doon will have to sacrifice some of his regular season stats if he wants to make the playoffs.

It is precisely for this reason that Doon wants to average a triple-double per game, and I am afraid that only this season has a chance to achieve it.

After all, Doon doesn't want to waste his peak and keeps going to the lottery team to develop rookies.

This kind of thing is almost the same if you do it once, and it is impossible to cultivate talents for the alliance every year.

Seriously, the big guys have the way to play!

The Chicago Bulls should be like the Los Angeles Lakers, cultivating their own championship cornerstones, and then piecing together the all-star level championship puzzle.

Today's Doon is undoubtedly one of the league's top champions.

Doon wants to do what Jordan did with the Bulls, but he also doesn't want to do it all over again.

Taking shortcuts to impact historical status is not convincing, but you can't deliberately take a long detour in order to take the most difficult road!

Just like the future Warriors, the sequelae of winning the championship are very serious, but Curry did not jump out of the original framework and go to a team with more draft picks and healthy salary space.

Instead, he held on to a city and continued to fight with a few old brothers. Even if he was sucked blood, he didn't complain.

The team also supports Curry and brings in reinforcements under the super luxury tax.

In Doon's view, this is the way the giants play, and it is also the team that Doon admires and is willing to be loyal to.

Getting back to business, the Bulls quickly ushered in a head-on blow as they entered March.

Originally, the bulls played spurs, and it was not too difficult.

However, this time away from home, the Spurs just ushered in the double outbreak of Parker and Ginobili.

Doon can only wear one of them with his back and lock up one's offense with his defense.

And the winning streak will inevitably make the Bulls young army complacent and arrogant.

Playing in this state, the Bulls players will inevitably have a lack of defensive concentration during the game, and the Spurs will seize the opportunity to score the ball easily.

After losing to the Spurs, the Bulls rushed back to Chicago overnight because of the next away game against the Bucks.

In the past, the bulls and bucks were also arranged in this way.

Milwaukee is very close to Chicago, right next door, and only two hours by car.

But flying back to Chicago from the West overnight and taking a two-hour drive to the arena the next afternoon was exhausting.

In addition, the second half of the regular season has a tighter schedule than the first half, and the defensive intensity is also greater, and the Bulls play fast.

Ben Gordon, Rohr Deng, and Josh Smith, all first-year rookies who were heavily used by the Bulls, finally hit the rookie wall one after another, and they had problems with their stamina.

Therefore, the Bucks, who were originally determined to win, turned against the Bulls instead.

Even if Doon was full of firepower in the fourth quarter, he also met Reed, who felt convulsive, and failed to reverse the score.

However, this is also the norm in the NBA. An NBA team is an NBA team after all!

As long as the team is not clearly rotten, anyone can cause an upset and win at the hands of the championship team.

And in order to avoid this situation of capsizing in the gutter and losing to a team on the fringes of the playoffs like the Bucks, the Bulls have also had their own plans.

After the rotation was launched, the playing time of the Bulls' rookies was evenly spread.

Even rookies like Ben Gordon, Roel Deng, and Josh Smith, who are reused and often start, only play about 20 minutes a game.

As for an absolute core like Doon, although he did not miss the game, his playing time was greatly reduced.

Playing an average of 38 minutes per game, now it only plays about 30 minutes.

It is said that the reduction of the playing time of the Bulls' main team will naturally affect the team's record.

Fortunately, in the next period of time, the Bulls will basically meet the weak teams in the East and West.

The Bulls beat the Trail Blazers, the SuperSonics, and the Clippers restarted their winning streak until they met the Nets, who had allocated the ball, and then lost another game.

Immediately after, the Bulls defeated the Hornets, 76ers, Hawks, Raptors, and Celtics one after another.

It wasn't until they met the Pacers that the winning streak was ended by other teams.

However, in today's situation, for the Bulls, losing one or two games no longer affects the overall situation.

It is always two or three wins away from the Heat, who are first in the East, and it is not so easy for the Pistons, who are third in the East, to catch up.

There are still more than a dozen games left before the end of the regular season, and the Bulls have also begun to line up and pick opponents in advance in order to achieve good results in the playoffs.

In fact, the main thing is to avoid some difficult opponents!

The Bulls studied the Heat's schedule and were basically sure that the Heat could hold on to the first place in the East and make the playoffs.

Since the Bulls have no chance of rushing to the top of the East, they will have to give up some game wins and avoid the Pistons and Pacers who have restrained their style of play in advance.

Anyway, the Bulls are already in the playoffs, and there are not many teams that can't beat in the playoffs.

In today's East, it is a little more difficult for the Pistons and Pacers to get around.

The Pacers are only seventh in the East because of the impact of the Battle of Auburn Hills Palace, and even if they go up the rankings, they will basically be fifth or sixth in the East.

If the Bulls want to avoid the Pistons and Pacers, the best thing is to slide to fourth in the East first, and then send some warmth to the Celtics, who are currently fourth in the East, and the Wizards, who are fifth in the East.

As a result, the Pistons could quickly overtake the Bulls, and the Pacers were stuck in sixth and seventh positions in the East.

The Bulls can do well to sit in fourth place in the East.

That way, the Pistons and Pacers won't be too soon, and there will even be a chance for the two powerhouses to face each other in the first round.

The Bulls' plan was pretty good, but the Heat also started watching the Bulls' every move early.

As a result, after the Bulls released the water, the Heat also began to lose.

The Heat lost at a higher level, that is, they first maintained the same record as the Bulls.

After all, the matchup between the Heat and the Bulls is a loss for the Heat.

With the same record, the Bulls are first, the Heat is second, and the two teams will not meet before the Eastern Conference Finals.

If the Bulls are second, the Heat can continue to lose and fall to fourth in the East, and of course, they can continue to retain the first place in the East.

It was also because the top two teams in the East suddenly began to control the score, and the Pistons were a blessing in disguise, suddenly climbing from the third place in the East to the first place in the East.

However, all three teams have similar records, with a difference of basically only one game or 0.5 wins.

As soon as the Bulls saw that their plans had changed, they also began to adjust their strategies, wanting to regain the first and second positions in the East.

On the one hand, being able to continue to avoid the Pistons and Pacers, on the other hand, also helped Doon win the regular season MVP.

After all, blindly losing before the end of the regular season is also easy to affect the mood and state of the players.

It's definitely better to be able to win and control than to lose and control.

However, man is not as good as heaven.

While the Bulls were calculating the Pistons and the Heat, they were also being calculated by the Pistons and the Heat.

The opponents of the Bulls in the last two games were the Knicks and the Pacers.

The regular season is coming to an end, and the Knicks are also competing with the Cavaliers for the eighth playoff spot in the East.

Anthony broke out in order to be able to continue to lead the team to the playoffs, but also to not lose to James and prove himself in front of Doon.

Doon tried his best, but he didn't press Anthony down.

And Anthony basically scored 46 points purely by shooting.

With that, he won a rare win from the Bulls.

As a result, the Bulls' hopes of hitting the first place in the East were dashed.

At the same time, the Heat, who faced the Bobcats at home, relied on the extreme cooperation of the Bobcats to continuously implement the shark-cutting tactics and send O'Neal to the free throw line, which also delayed the game for more than half an hour.

Knowing that the Bulls lost at home, the Heat stopped playing and went all out to win tonight's victory and stabilize the first place in the East.

On April 20, the Bulls host the Pacers.

The Pacers, who have already ensured entry to the playoffs, directly rotated the main players, just to send the Bulls to win.

The goal is to finish seventh in the East and pick either the Bulls or the Pistons.

The Bulls are playing at home, and it is impossible for the fans to take the initiative to lose, so they can only suffer the consequences.

The words are divided into two ends, and the Pistons, who are also playing the last game of the regular season, are also a pure bench lineup and announce that they will take the initiative to admit defeat.

In this way, it ensures that the Bulls can make the playoffs with the second-best record in the East.

The Pistons aren't afraid of the Pacers, but there's no need to play the Pacers in the first round.

The intensity of the playoffs is too high! Playing a strong defensive team like the Pacers has grievances, and it is easy to get injured by the main force.

Larry Brown is going crazy trying to win the championship, and naturally he doesn't want to start fighting hard from the first round.

So, it doesn't matter if you send the Bulls a higher ranking.

Let the Bulls and Pacers consume first, anyway, in the second round of the playoffs, whether they play the Bulls or the Pacers, the Pistons can beat the opponent early and wait for work.

In other words, with the official end of the regular season, the East and West playoff rosters are also quickly released.

Next, the Heat, who are first in the East, will face the Knicks, who are eighth in the East.

The Bulls, who are second in the East, face the Pacers, who are seventh in the East.

The Pistons, who are third in the East, picked the soft persimmon of the Nets.

Fourth and fifth in the East are the Celtics and Wizards, respectively.

The situation in the West is that the Suns play the Timberwolves, the Spurs play the Grizzlies, the Lakers play the Kings, and the Mavericks play the Rockets.

Whether it is the Bulls in the East or the Lakers in the West, if you want to reach the division finals, you have to go all the way and win the fierce battles!

(End of chapter)