Bauman: Bulls pass resilience test; Now it’s Brooklyn’s turn

Or Noah himself, which he definitely was to a large degree.

Noah’s herculean effort defensively and on the boards at both ends was dominant, especially in the fourth quarter.

“Overall, I thought Jo was very rusty in the first game but he willed it and then I thought he willed it again tonight,” Thibodeau said. “And we needed every bit of it. To me, it’s obvious we’re a much better team with him on the floor.”

The silence after the third quarter was broken when the Nets opened the final period with an 11-2 burst to get within five points. Noah re-entered with 7:39 left and made his mark with a dunk off a feed from Deng, followed by an incredible hustle play where he rebounded the ball and saved it to Hinrich, who caught-and-kicked it to Nate Robinson for a crucial 3-pointer to put the Bulls ahead, 78-68.

Noah wasn’t done. He corralled four more rebounds – two offensive, two defensive – scored six more points and sealed matters with an outstanding block of a drive by Brook Lopez that went out of bounds off C.J. Watson with less than a minute to play.

“His timing is not quite there,” Thibodeau said. “He’s doing it a lot of it on will, but I thought his defense was very good. His rebounding effort was great. He had a couple of timely baskets late – a couple of them, actually. But he can make your offense function because his passing is great. I think the more he plays, the more his timing comes back. We were able to increase his role better. We increased his minutes some.”

So after a one-game lapse, the Bulls are back to being the Bulls. Now it is the Nets who will be looking to make adjustments in how they attack Chicago’s defense to get into the paint to create easier scoring opportunities.

“Our execution, when they made an adjustment, or they increased the defensive pressure, we didn’t handle it well enough or we didn’t react as well as we needed to,” Carlesimo said.

Expect to see more ball movement by the Nets instead of relying on pick-and-probe offense. Williams and Lopez did have a few moments of solid pick-and-pop basketball when the Bulls’  vicious two-man pursuit of Williams left Lopez open for three jump shots from the top of the key. But that was a minor triumph for the Bulls because they got the ball out of Williams’ hands.

In two home games, the Nets experienced two blackouts. In Game 1 it was provided by their fans, who wore black to rally around their team. In Game 2 it was their offense, which had way too many power outages.

The Bulls host the next two games, and “it’s gonna be all red in Chicago on Thursday,” forward Taj Gibson said. 

“On Thursday, it’s gonna be a battle,” Noah said. “They’re gonna make adjustments. It’s playoff basketball and that’s what it’s all about.”

Adjust. Survive. Advance. That’s clearly the mantra for these Bulls.

Can the Nets match their resilience?