The last thought in the mind of every Chicago Bulls fan is Derrick Rose walking off the floor after being defeated by the Miami Heat in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Since the Bulls have shown they can beat any other team in the league with regularity, they are now creating this team with the purpose of beating the Heat. If the current formula is not good enough to beat the Heat, they need to change it. That will be the outlook for the next three years at least.
While Rose deservedly received the bulk of the credit for getting Chicago to the conference finals, he should also receive the brunt of the blame for the Bulls coming home empty-handed.
The first and most important thing for Rose to understand is there are unreasonable and unfair expectations placed on his shoulders.The Chicago Bulls offense is completely based around Rose, to the point that the bench has incredible trouble scoring when he's not in the game. This absolutely seems unfair, but it's the formula that worked for Chicago all season.
The main problem with the series was that the Bulls were not able to punish the Heat for playing so many defenders on Rose, especially with Luol Deng playing so passively and Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah both lacking lift. The only hope of the Bulls would have been for Kyle Korver to be effective from the three-point arc, but the Heat just recovered too quickly for Korver to hurt them.
To help with this, Rose needs to keep working on his long-range jumper. If Rose is able to hit the three-point shot with consistency, it forces his defender to play closer to him, and that opens up the floor quite a bit for cutters and mid-range players like the Bulls have.
Rose also could work on trying to get his teammates involved early. I am not by any means saying Rose should take away from his scoring chances, but he should make an extra effort to try and get his guys easy looks. If Rose can get Boozer, Deng or Korver going, that can make his job that much easier in the fourth, when the Miami defense tries to zero in on him, because he can easily dish it off to one of his teammates and let them punish Miami.
Rose also needs to prove once and for all his presence in the locker room. There were multiple reports after the finals about Rose being depressed about not being able to get past the Heat after coming so far. Rose needs to take these emotions and turn them into motivation for both himself and his team. If he is able to do that, he will be unstoppable.
Like I said, these expectations are absolutely unfair, but Bulls fans know Rose will work as hard as he possibly can to reach them. That is why he is the MVP. We will see if Rose can make some changes to his regimen and develop the skills to beat the Heat with the current roster.
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