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Pretty straightforward question.

Would they have fared better? And what odds would they have had at winning the series?

From what I recall Bulls weren't on that level until 2012.

The 2012 Bulls would have taken the Heat to game 7, had Rose not got injured. I can guarantee that.

I think 2012 Bulls would beat the 2011 Mavs because their defense would good enough to limit Dirk enough.

Maybe. Bulls swept in 2011 during the regular season but the games were close.
I could see Thibs coming up with some sort of plan to slow down Dirk and Terry.

If Rose outplayed Terry

prolific passer wrote:Maybe. Bulls swept in 2011 during the regular season but the games were close.
I could see Thibs coming up with some sort of plan to slow down Dirk and Terry.

Slowing down Dirk? I don't see it, and aside from that he was already not doing nearly as well against Miami as he did against the West.

Slowing down Terry, very do-able but he's one of many good players on the Mavericks.

I don't think so. Bosh had a great series against the bulls in conference finals and I don't think the bulls would be able to slow down Dirk either

HeartBreakKid wrote:
Slowing down Dirk? I don't see it, and aside from that he was already not doing nearly as well against Miami as he did against the West.

Hmm, but why not? The Bulls had the best defense in the league, and a few good defenders to throw at Dirk. If Miami slowed down Dirk, why not Chicago?

Narigo wrote:I don't think so. Bosh had a great series against the bulls in conference finals and I don't think the bulls would be able to slow down Dirk either

Would Dallas be able to slow Rose down the way Miami did? I doubt it. I think he’d blow past Kidd, Barea and Jet pretty easily.

mdonnelly1989 wrote:From what I recall Bulls weren't on that level until 2012.

The 2012 Bulls would have taken the Heat to game 7, had Rose not got injured. I can guarantee that.

I think 2012 Bulls would beat the 2011 Mavs because their defense would good enough to limit Dirk enough.

When healthy I don’t see much difference between the 2011 and 2012 Bulls.

The mavs were stomping 55+ win teams in the west and then beat a team that crushed the east, I'd expect them to win pretty comfortably unless there's some major variable im not accounting for

No, the Thibs Bulls overperformed in regular seasons (as seen by their play even without Rose) because they play hard, but talent usually caught up to them. The Mavs had great IQ on D and would have figured out how to guard pretty simplistic Rose driven offense. The Bulls can't shut down the Mavs because they were passing and shooting way too good if you doubled Dirk. The Celtics probably would've given the Mavs a better series than the Bulls if not for trading Perkins somehow messing up their team.

OhayoKD wrote:The mavs were stomping 55+ win teams in the west and then beat a team that crushed the east, I'd expect them to win pretty comfortably unless there's some major variable im not accounting for

The Heat one you can’t take away of course, but the West opponents were a little overrated in regards to their win total/SRS. The Lakers sort of had a self implosion, Kobe was hurt and required surgery the following offseason, Pau was going through some sort of personal dilema and overall I think the core was run down from 3 straight finals runs.

OKC was a strong opponent of course, but very inexperienced and not ready yet and barely beat the Grizz for that matter.

Dr Positivity wrote:No, the Thibs Bulls overperformed in regular seasons (as seen by their play even without Rose) because they play hard, but talent usually caught up to them. The Mavs had great IQ on D and would have figured out how to guard pretty simplistic Rose driven offense. The Bulls can't shut down the Mavs because they were passing and shooting way too good if you doubled Dirk. The Celtics probably would've given the Mavs a better series than the Bulls if not for trading Perkins somehow messing up their team.

I disagree that the Bulls were just this regular season team or however exactly you want to frame it. As noted above, if anything the Lakers were overrated by regular season performance and OKC wasn’t all that strong of a 55 win team. I think the Bulls would’ve beaten both of those teams too.

Their problems against Miami were a few things. Rose wasn’t fully healthy, and couldn’t handle the agressive trapping schemes of the Heat, namely Lebron and Wade. I don’t think Dallas could’ve replicated a similar thing, so Rose probably has a better series against them.

They’d still have the issue of lacking a 2nd strong scorer/playmaker but they were the real deal defensively. I don’t think Dallas just runs over a defense like that.

Dallas would probably still win the series in a close 6-7 games. Dirk would be too much in the clutch.

The only point was they might match up better against them than the Heat did, given Lebron’s poor play. I don’t think that’s a wild statement. The Bulls were certainly stronger than the playoff iterations of OKC and LAL that should be made clear.

Agree on Boston. I think even without Perkins, a healthy Rondo, Pierce, KG and Allen would’ve been tough for any team that year. People like to call that series with the Heat some whipeout, but Rondo had severe limitations in games 4 and 5 due to injury. 2012 showed how close the 2 teams actually were.

No-more-rings wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:The mavs were stomping 55+ win teams in the west and then beat a team that crushed the east, I'd expect them to win pretty comfortably unless there's some major variable im not accounting for

The Heat one you can’t take away of course, but the West opponents were a little overrated in regards to their win total/SRS. The Lakers sort of had a self implosion, Kobe was hurt and required surgery the following offseason, Pau was going through some sort of personal dilema and overall I think the core was run down from 3 straight finals runs.

OKC was a strong opponent of course, but very inexperienced and not ready yet and barely beat the Grizz for that matter.

Were they very inexperienced? The season before they'd won 50 before pushing the eventual champions to 6. That Grizzlies team you're knocking got to the 2nd round by beating the 61 win Spurs. The comparison that comes to mind would actually be the 93 Knicks(and i guess their 2010 and 2012 version would map to 92 and 94 New York respectively). And the Mavs obliterated them. Considering that OKC did pretty well vs everyone else in that time-span(well excepting for the 2012 Heat who were a +13 juggernaut in games where their big three started), saying their rs underrated them seems off. If anything, their playoff performances would indicate they were ps elevators while the Bulls were ps fallers.

Their problems against Miami were a few things. Rose wasn’t fully healthy, and couldn’t handle the agressive trapping schemes of the Heat, namely Lebron and Wade. I don’t think Dallas could’ve replicated a similar thing, so Rose probably has a better series against them.

Okay but the difference in starting points is pretty massive. Just how well do you think rose is doing, chandler's a decent deterrent. Ultimately, two post-season buzz-saws met in the finals and the decider was Lebron posting the 2nd worst playoff performance in his 20 year career.

The OKC team you're dismissing can be scaled from the 61-win mid-dynasty Spurs. The west was loaded and the Mavs trashed it. I don't think Derrick Rose is nearly good enough to bridge what was a honestly massive performance gap.

No-more-rings wrote:

mdonnelly1989 wrote:From what I recall Bulls weren't on that level until 2012.

The 2012 Bulls would have taken the Heat to game 7, had Rose not got injured. I can guarantee that.

I think 2012 Bulls would beat the 2011 Mavs because their defense would good enough to limit Dirk enough.

When healthy I don’t see much difference between the 2011 and 2012 Bulls.

The addition of Rip Hamilton gave the Bulls that much needed perimeter shooter on the outside. That's a HUGE addition just by itself. It changed the dynamics of the offense by a good amount so the defense didn't focus so much on Rose.

Secondly. Rose got better from the previous year. He was smarter, his jump shot got better and was a more willing passer.

Bulls that year were

#1 in Rebounding
#1 in Assists
#8 in scoring
#1. Defense

All despite the starting 5 not playing together a good point of the season together. I seriously think they would have been top 3 in scoring too. 76ers were #2 in defense and before Rose went down Bulls offense was cutting through that defense like a hot knife through butter. Clearly and comfortably better than the season before.

OhayoKD wrote:Were they very inexperienced? The season before they'd won 50 before pushing the eventual champions to 6. That Grizzlies team you're knocking got to the 2nd round by beating the 61 win Spurs.

When their stars are all 21 and 22 years old, I'd say yeah that matters a good deal when going against a strong veteran led team like the Mavs who's superstar was arguably at the height of his powers.

Yeah, I'd say matters. Why would it not?

OhayoKD wrote: The comparison that comes to mind would actually be the 93 Knicks(and i guess their 2010 and 2012 version would map to 92 and 94 New York respectively). And the Mavs obliterated them. Considering that OKC did pretty well vs everyone else in that time-span(well excepting for the 2012 Heat who were a +13 juggernaut in games where their big three started), saying their rs underrated them seems off. If anything, their playoff performances would indicate they were ps elevators while the Bulls were ps fallers.

I never said OKC wasn't a really good team, but it's clear a team that young wasn't going to win anything. It's not taking anything away from Dallas, but when you say things like "smashed 2 55 win teams" it helps to add context to that statement.

Yeah you can say their SRS underrated them a little but their SRS wasn't that high to begin with.

OhayoKD wrote:Okay but the difference in starting points is pretty massive. Just how well do you think rose is doing, chandler's a decent deterrent. Ultimately, two post-season buzz-saws met in the finals and the decider was Lebron posting the 2nd worst playoff performance in his 20 year career.

I don't think he's doing well enough for them to win, but better than he did vs Miami most likely yes.

OhayoKD wrote:The OKC team you're dismissing can be scaled from the 61-win mid-dynasty Spurs. The west was loaded and the Mavs trashed it. I don't think Derrick Rose is nearly good enough to bridge what was a honestly massive performance gap.

Chicago posted the 6th ranked offense and 2rd ranked defense in the postseason. I don't see this massive under-performance from them you're talking about.

They held the Heat's offense to -8.5 from their regular season effort, and only a total 11 point differential in that series, and took a ridiculous comeback from Lebron and Wade in game 5 avoid a game 6. That series wasn't as easy peezy as the 5 games probably looks to you.

On the other hand, OKC and LAL gave up a 115.1 ORTG and 116.7 ORTG receptively to the Dallas. Those were two teams who clearly had issues on defense in those playoffs.

I know you'll probably point to how the Lakers had a 6th ranked DRTG in the regular season or something, but again that was a team that was basically imploding from within for a number of reasons and at the wrong time.

The Mavs did run through the West yes, and it was impressive, but I don't necessarily see that as clear evidence that they steamroll the best defense, best record and 2nd best SRS in the league in the Bulls.

Would they be favored? Yes. Would it be easy? I don't think so.

No-more-rings wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:

Were they very inexperienced? The season before they'd won 50 before pushing the eventual champions to 6. That Grizzlies team you're knocking got to the 2nd round by beating the 61 win Spurs.

When their stars are all 21 and 22 years old, I'd say yeah that matters a good deal when going against a strong veteran led team like the Mavs who's superstar was arguably at the height of his powers.

Yeah, I'd say matters. Why would it not?

Because their playoff performances indicate it didn't? Do we evaluate teams on age or how they do? Is "inexperience" not baked-in with performance? And unless there's some massively inflated srs thing going on, a 61 win team getting beat in 5 by an eventual loser is usually pretty big underperformance. You need to compare rs to ps if you want to argue for over or under performance, not just how they ranked in a vacuum. Best defense in the league dropping is typically underperformance, distribution between offense and defense also isn't particularly important.

I think I've addressed everything so i'll just leave it at that. RS between the two was close so if that's what you put all your weight on I guess I can see it.