Left for dead after falling to a season-low 10 under .500, the Chicago Bulls are starting to show signs of life.
The Bulls won their second in a row on Sunday afternoon against the Boston Celtics and moved to 31-39, within a game and a half of the Philadelphia 76ers for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
With the Sacramento Kings beginning to put some distance between themselves and the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, the last spot in the East appears to be the only playoff spot still up for grabs. Now it's just a question of who can lock it up.
On Mar. 3, the 76ers looked poised to take it. They had just knocked off the Washington Wizards 119-113, and the win was the team's second in a row and fifth in their last six games. Most importantly, the team was four games ahead of the Bulls in the standings.
Now, just over three weeks later, the 76ers are on the verge of a collapse. Following the victory over the Wizards, the Sixers have lost nine out of 11 games, dropping games to teams like Boston, the Toronto Raptors, the Golden State Warriors and the Orlando Magic. Their grip on the playoffs is slipping, and the Bulls are in a position to take advantage.
Sunday's matchup between the Bulls and Celtics was essentially a one-game playoff to determine which team could continue in the playoff race, with the Bulls clinging to their slim chance and the Celtics clinging to an even slimmer one.
Playing in front of the home crowd, the Celtics took a 53-46 lead in the second half. The Bulls made several runs, but they could not catch the Celtics, who led for the first 45 minutes of the contest. Early in the fourth quarter, the Bulls were staring at an 80-68 deficit and looked like the wildly inconsistent team that has struggled most of the season.
Soon, though, Chicago began to resemble the playoff team that it was last year, with Ben Gordon hitting clutch shots and Tyson Chandler swatting them. With 23 seconds left in the game, Gordon scored two of his 13 fourth quarter points, pouring in a jumper from the top of the key to give the Bulls a 97-95 lead. The Celtics put the ball in the hands of their clutch finisher Paul Pierce, but Pierce's driving shot was rejected by Chandler, who had four blocks in the game. The win kept the Bulls breathing.
As of today, the Bulls have 11 games remaining and the Sixers have 13, with the two scheduled to meet in back-to-back games on Apr. 5, in Philadelphia and Apr. 8 in Chicago. The results of Tuesday's Bulls-Magic game were not available at press time. The schedule could go a long way in deciding who earns a trip to the playoffs and who enters the Draft Lottery.
The Bulls seem to have the advantage in the remaining schedule. While the Sixers have two games remaining against the New York Knicks and single games against Boston, Orlando and the Charlotte Bobcats, they also play the Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, Washington, the Miami Heat and two against the New Jersey Nets.
The Bulls also have games against Miami, Washington, Charlotte and Boston, but get to play the Nets only once. They also have winnable games against Toronto and Atlanta. The only challenge they face that the Sixers do not are the beatable Indiana Pacers.
But no games will be bigger than the ones on Apr. 5 and 8, when the Bulls and Sixers will lock horns. Those two games could be the deciding factor in determining the final playoff spot.
