Scott Skiles watched the game tape once, twice and a third time–all before noon Sunday.
The Bulls did a lot right against the Miami Heat on Saturday night, their coach surmised, in a five-point loss in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.
Even Skiles had to wonder, though, if things could have gone better for the Bulls if Luol Deng had played more minutes instead of the 22 he did, including only eight in the second half.
“In looking at it, I may have made a mistake by not getting him out there a little bit more,” Skiles said.
Deng had some jitters in his first playoff game, but that didn’t factor into Skiles’ personnel decisions late in the game, the coach said.
“It took him a while to get into the game, but that’s understandable,” he said.
Skiles said Deng was a victim of circumstance because he stuck with a relatively small lineup of Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Chris Duhon, Andres Nocioni and Tyson Chandler late in the game.
“I wasn’t sitting there on the bench intentionally saying to myself, `Lu’s too nervous to put back in the game,'” Skiles said. “It’s just that we went to the really small lineup and got Ben going again. Then we just took it to the end that way.
“Around the four-minute mark, I thought about getting him back in there. But he’d been out for a while at that point and I didn’t know if that would be good for him.”
Deng, who averaged 23 points over the Bulls’ last three regular-season games, ended up with only two baskets against the Heat. His late-season roll left no doubt he had recovered from a concussion he suffered early in the month. He was not available to comment Sunday.
Ultimately, it’s hard to imagine Deng could have made a spectacular difference. The game ended up hinging on Heat star Dwyane Wade, who scored 14 in the final quarter, as well as costly turnovers by the Bulls.
The Bulls will look to change a few things against the Heat in Game 2 on Monday night, and they will try to duplicate what went right. Here’s a sampling of what to look for:
Reliving the good
Hot shots: Up until the final minutes, the Bulls were successful with their draw-and-kick game against the Heat. Overall, they shot a respectable 45.5 percent and made 50 percent of their three-pointers. They sank 13 threes to tie a club playoff record, going 9-for-12 in the second half.
Burning down the house: Ben Gordon thrives on a big stage. When he returns home to New York to play the Knicks, he lights up Madison Square Garden. He did the same against the Heat, hitting five three-pointers and scoring 35 points. He gave the Bulls a four-point lead in the fourth quarter before Wade went on a tear.
Demanding `D’ on Dwyane: Largely behind Hinrich, the Bulls made Wade work extra hard for every shot. He ended up going 8-for-21 and had to leave the game in the final seconds because of leg cramps. Could it be the Bulls’ defense took a toll on Wade? It appeared to be the case.
“Kirk did a phenomenal job on Dwyane, but during a little 2 1/2-, 3-minute stretch, he had his way with us,” Skiles said. “A couple of his plays just broke our back.”
Eliminating the bad
Defend everyone else: All night long, the Bulls couldn’t stop anyone besides Wade. The Bulls had the NBA’s best defensive field-goal percentage in the regular season, but the Heat shot 63.2 percent in the first half.
“Our problems [Saturday night] were defensive,” Skiles said. “We had a very difficult time stopping them, especially at key moments.”
Shaquille O’Neal got the best of Chandler, forcing Chandler to foul out. O’Neal went 11-for-16 and scored 27.
“It’s exhausting,” Chandler said of defending O’Neal. “It takes a lot of your energy away.”
Don’t lose your cool: With Gordon carrying the load on offense, the Bulls had Miami on the ropes with less than 8 1/2 minutes to play. While Wade was primarily responsible for the Heat’s comeback, the Bulls did Miami a favor by committing three costly turnovers, two by Hinrich and one by Nocioni.
“We had a couple of turnovers right when we were really trying to seize momentum,” Skiles said.
Be a big shot: For all of Gordon’s big baskets, he was stopped cold in the closing minutes by Gary Payton. Late in the game, no other Bull came close to matching Gordon’s production. The absence of another go-to guy was glaring.
“In the key moments, when we really needed something, we had a hard time coming up with it,” Skiles said.
There were a few times Gordon was open but went unseen by teammates, but Skiles didn’t levy a lot of criticism for it.
Nocioni could have been a hero if he had hit a three-pointer with 15.9 seconds left to tie the game. Skiles was asked whether Nocioni rushed the shot.
“It’s a shot he’s made before,” he said. “It’s always easy to stop the tape at a precise moment and criticize your players when they have to make split-second decisions out there. He went with what he felt was right at that point.”
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mxgarcia@tribune.com
