Watching the Mavericks dismantle the Heat was a big ball of schadenfreude-y fun for Bulls fans.
Considering how the Heat treated our over-matched team, it was refreshing to see the Heat fold under that same pressure applied by Dallas.
But while it was just fun to watch the Heat lose for Bulls fan, it provided something else for the Bulls players: motivation. Losing as they did in the conference finals, then watching how the Mavs won, will give the team every incentive possible to practice.
The player leading the way? The MVP.
"I'm going to get better. I'm not worried about that. If anything, this is going to make me hungry," Derrick Rose said.
And is there anyone else you'd want leading the team more than a hungry Derrick Rose? This is a man who won the MVP after just three years in the league. He practices like a crazy person, and now he's a crazy, hungry person. That should scare everyone in the NBA, as well as everyone who happens to get in Rose's way.
Don't stand in front of him in line at Starbucks, people.
You can bet that Coach of the Year Tom Thibodeau also sat in a dark room watching the Finals, analyzing everything that the Mavericks did to win. Every play, every substitution, every defense was likely seared into Thibs' brain. A lockout isn't going to keep the man from psychotically (in a good way!) picking apart tapes and coming up with plays and insane practices for his team.
This is the team that we want, Chicago. Hungry, relentless, and borderline crazy.
*Maggie Hendricks is a Chicago-based sports writer who spends most of her time writing witty, informative posts for NBCChicago's Bears blog Grizzly Detail. She's taken her talents to basketball while the Bears hibernate.
