Only halfway there

So the East comes down to this. Bulls vs. Heat. Rose vs. James. Good vs. Evil.

If you're a basketball junkie, it pits two teams for completely different ends of the spectrum and completely different ways to approach the game. You have the Heat, which my mom dubbed "Three Chiefs and No Indians" back in July, who rely mostly on Wade and LeBron as their scoring threats, are more of a perimeter team, and will beat you with highlight play after highlight play. On the other hand, you have the Bulls, who have the NBA MVP in Derrick Rose, rely on a stifling team defense, go 10-deep even in the playoffs, and carry themselves in a Hardhat and Lunch Pail sort of way.

But it seemed that as soon as the Bulls beat the Hawks, the media immediately jumped on the Heat bandwagon. Below are the Expert Picks from espn.com.

EXPERT PICKS

• 

  Abbott

  In 7

  

  Adande

  In 6

• 

  Arnovitz

  In 6

  

  Broussard

  In 6

• 

  Ford

  In 7

  

  Friedell

  In 6

• 

  Haberstroh

  In 6

  

  Harper

  In 6

• 

  Hollinger

  In 6

  

  Legler

  In 6

• 

  Palmer

  In 6

  

  Stein

  In 6

• 

  Wallace

  In 7

  

  Windhorst

  In 6

Just two pick the Bulls to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals. I don't like how the Heat celebrated after beating Boston like they just won the Finals. Because really...where would a lot of people be if they were satisfied in only getting halfway to their goal? After the Bulls closed out their Eastern Conference semifinal series with a 20-point drubbing of the Hawks, you saw a no-frills celebration, just a shaking of hand and heading into the locker room.

What the Bulls did reminded me of what the Blackhawks did last summer. There was no champagne celebration after winning the division. There was no champagne celebration after winning the conference. The only reason the Blackhawks had to celebrate was winning the Stanley Cup. D-Rose, Boozer, Noah, Deng and the Bench Mob probably don't even have the Larry O'Brien Trophy on their minds yet. Coach Thibodeau being the tactician he is will have his players focus only the next game on the schedule, Game 1 at the United Center Sunday night.

It's because of this that I believe the Bulls have the edge. There's something to be said about only focusing on the task at hand, something I think a lot of us (myself included) can't always say. They have home-court advantage, so a Heat win in Game 7 will have to come in a building in which the Bulls have only lost 6 times all year (including playoffs). I say the teams split each of Games 1 and 2 in the United Center and Games 3 and 4 in the American Airlines Arena, hold home court in Games 5 and 6, and for all of the Eastern marbles, the Bulls submit another big close-out performance and win Game 7.