Where (an) amazing (non-call) happens

As you may or may not know, I'm not a huge fan of Brad Miller's work (go here for some detailed evidence). But I'm not going to criticize him for missing the free-throw after getting smacked in the face by Rajon Rondo when he was allegedly non-flagrantly fouled in Game 5.*

* Seriously, I understand there is a somewhat different set of (unwritten) rules for the end of games, but c'mon. Miller was drilled in the face, and the ball was a good three feet out of Rondo's reach. I understand pocketing the whistle for ticky-tack stuff in the final moments of a game, but a 'flagrant foul' has to be called when a flagrant foul is committed, regardless of the clock situation. Otherwise, what's the point of having the rule in the first place? Those plays are obviously way more likely to occur with the game on the line, and a guy shouldn't be allowed to crack his opponent in the face without any additional repercussions just because the game is about to end.

Fouling without attempting to make a play on the ball is explicitly a flagrant. So is taking a full-on swing at someone's head. This play had both, but somehow a flagrant foul was not called. Ridiculous. Even Vinny Del Negro emerged from his netherworld of brainfarting illogic to plead the Bulls' case. Clearly the refs were too chickenshit to make the proper call in the Celtics' building, which is just awful.

And if you think this is just some Chicago-centric take, check out Henry Abbott's excellent piece on the subject. Or John Hollinger's.

Just about every player -- even the great ones -- has missed a crucial, late-game free throw, as there's no more pressure-filled situation in the NBA than going to the line in the final seconds of a close game. Especially in the playoffs. Virtually every player in this series has missed a crucial free-throw in one game or another, so I wasn't expecting the bloody-mouthed and bleary-eyed Miller to step up and nail a pair with the Bulls trailing 106-104 in OT. So when he missed the first, I was hardly surprised. Or angry.

What I was angry about -- and what I am going to criticize Miller for -- was his piss-poor effort when intentionally missing the second. His only responsibility in that situation is to hit the goddamn rim so that Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah have a chance at a putback, and he missed by a good three feet in both directions. Instead of just randomly whipping the ball off the backboard, which created a dead-ball situation by failing to draw iron, he should have been aiming for the junction between the back of the rim and the glass. Sure, there would have been a small chance that the ball would go in, but it almost certainly would have hit the rim. I don't know if Miller was still frustrated from missing the first free throw and/or the non-call of the flagrant, but his lack of effort when trying to miss cost the Bulls any chance of a game-tying tip-in.

But it wasn't Miller's shoddy effort there, or his first miss, or the absence of a flagrant foul call that cost the Bulls the game. And while I would've liked to see Tyrus Thomas play more than a paltry 25 seconds in the fourth quarter and overtime combined, that wasn't the culprit either.The Bulls simply didn't execute well enough late in the fourth quarter and overtime, and a pair of late Derrick Rose turnovers really hurt.

I do, however, think that the Del Negro's proclivity for using smaller lineups (Rose, Gordon, Hinrich, Salmons, and Noah/Miller) is playing right into the Celtics' hands. Boston's frontcourt depth has been decimated by injuries, meaning the Bulls' choosing to go small basically mitigates their biggest advantage. As my brother-in-law often laments, that's what happens when you hire a former guard as coach. Those guys still see the game from a little-man's perspective, and Del Negro often reverts to his smallest lineups in the game's biggest moments.

After Game 5 of what continues to be an indescribably great match-up, I am left to ponder something I never even considered as a possibility when the series began: Are the Bulls actually the better team? I think they could be, and they're at least as talented, given Boston's current state of disrepair. The four games that could have gone either way have been split 2-2, so I can't really even blame Del Negro's coaching all that much, or at least have to conclude that Doc Rivers has been nearly as bad. Still, it is Del Negro's job to have the team ready to play, which the Bulls clearly weren't in Game 3. If you reversed the coaching staffs, don't you think the Bulls would be ahead, even without home-court advantage? I do.

But while it would have been nice to take a 3-2 lead, dropping the game was probably the best thing for the Bulls' state of mind. Losing keeps the expectations low, and that's when this team plays its best basketball. And really, all of the pressure remains squarely on the Celtics. They really need to close it out in Chicago, because I guarantee they don't want to see a seventh game. Not only do the Celtics hope to get their old legs some rest before the next round of the playoffs, but they also know they were lucky to take 2-of-3 from the Bulls in Boston. If the series extends to Game 7, the Celtics' collective sphincter will be tighter than the inexplicable spiral on a Joakim Noah free throw.

And that's pretty damn tight.