Eastern Conference First Round Rewind
Charlotte Hornets and the Chicago Bulls


Playoff action is back, baby!

The NSL ground through the fledgling final weeks of the regular season and now finds itself in the Promised Land, the NSL Playoffs. The worthy teams of the league remain, whether earned through a top seed and a dominant regular season performance or earned through grit and determination via the Play In games.

The First Round of match ups has almost come to a completion. Here, we will recap one of the exciting matchups from the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. The first seed Charlotte Hornets, fresh of the back of another dominant regular season, take on the Chicago Bulls � a proud organisation with a winning pedigree, who have suffered through a season mired in injury and inconsistency. Both GMs are revered, veteran figures in the game and both are hungry for playoff glory. Craig is quite a public figure, whereas Merencio, especially lately, has chosen to live a more covert life as the Bulls GM.

Tragically, for Charlotte Hornets fans, they were dealt a savage blow with their young superstar Luka Doncic, ruled out for the first part of the series with a leg injury. How much would it affect the Hornets, to not have their leader on the floor? How many games would he miss? To compound the misfortune, the Bulls welcome back their enigmatic and oft-injured guard John Wall. After missing every single regular season game, he has been deemed healthy enough to play for the Bulls in the post-season.

Game 1

The feeling out game. What would the Hornets run without Luka? What does a Bulls team with John Wall at PG look like? Lots of unanswerable questions leading into this one. One question that was answered quickly, was that, with the Luka news, this series was wide open. The Bulls rampaged through the first quarter, leading 27-10 after the first quarter, with the shellshocked Hornets scrambling to problem solve on the fly in an attempt to rescue back any kind of perceived ascendency that they carried into the series.

Despite outscoring the Bulls the rest of the way, the Hornets could not overcome the gutpunch they received in the first quarter. A swarming Bulls defense and a motivated John Wall proved too much for Chris Paul, who took on the added responsibility as a scorer but failed to deliver. Both teams went really tall, with all front court starters standing close to 7 feet. Both the Hornets and the Bulls were similar in terms of their rebound and defense. However, the difference was the Bulls efficiency, recording much higher shooting percentages and twice the assists of the Hornets.

Game 2

Would the Hornets be able to respond to the surprisingly frisky and tough Bulls outfit that mentally dominated Game 1? Having taken home court advantage, would the Bulls prove to be more than the surprising game one result? Unsurprisingly, both teams stuck with the same lineups from the first game. Tall. Paul vs Wall. If you just watched the first quarter, you would think that the Hornets were back, keeping it close and tied going into the second. However, the Bulls saved their punch for the second, riding the second units efficiency to a 13 point half time lead. It would prove to be insurmountable for the second game in a row, with the Hornets failing to capitalise on a better start and the home court advantage, down two games in the series. These results are a testament to having players in the right roles for them to be great. Chris Paul struggled mightily again with the burden of having to score, scoring 14 points on 20 shots. SOS, Luka!

Game 3

The changes came for Game 3, with Chris Paul sliding over to SG to avoid John Wall and try to breathe some life back into his scoring and his teams future. It worked, with Paul getting off to a much better start in a close game. However, as it had been for much of the series, Charlotte has more variance in the efficiency of their players, and it continued to rear its ugly head. Anthony Davis and John Walls consistent play appears to steady the rest of the team, with a team of player relatively inexperienced in playing as a unit, galvanising together and playing great basketball. Chris Paul and Javale McGee were huge for Charlotte, but the Bulls just did everything better, ahead in almost every statistical category. The only thing that could be worse for Charlotte was if Luka wasn�t coming back, as they have proven to absolutely need him to make this a series. Luckily, his return was imminent. Could Luka heroically rescue the series for Charlotte?

Game 4

Lukas return. Boy, and not a moment too soon. The flailing Hornets have struggled mightily without their maestro to conduct the Charlotte orchestra. Across the first three games, the Hornets weren�t up to it. Some interesting lineup changes in this one, with Luka straight in at power forward to disrupt the Bulls flow and play on Davis, and Merencio anticipating this and moving Davis to small forward. Very intriguing. Proving just how legitimate of a superstar he is, Luka came in and dominated from the beginning, scoring 35 points and getting his team off to a great start. On the Bulls court, the Hornets were too strong, staving off elimination and keeping the series alive. Davis and Wall continue to be impactful, but the supporting cast was a little off in this game.

Game 5

The Hornets survived the Bulls homestand and return to Charlotte with aims to prolong the series even further. No team comes back from 0-3 down, but with Luka back, there was every reason to believe it could happen, here. Luka was swapped back to his usual SG spot and the Bulls flipped Davis back to PF. As has been the tone for Charlotte this series, it just hasn�t gone to plan. They came out and scored just 12 points in the first quarter, allowing the Bulls to score 41 and putting them 29 points behind. Davis was incredible at PF, bringing some doubt into whether the Hornets played the right strategy.




Unfortunately, the Hornets series and season was over before it had officially ended. Charlotte are a terrific team and had a brilliant season, but a timely injury to Luka proved to be too devastating for them to get their footing in the playoffs. Well done on a great season, Craig.

For the Bulls, during a season that appeared lost and with a front office who appeared resigned to this fact, proved to us all why they play the games. Congratulations to Chicago on advancing to the semi finals. He might be off the grid now, but no one has more fight in them than Merencio. Well done.