May 12--CLEVELAND -- Well before the Bulls took the Quicken Loans Arena court for their Tuesday morning shootaround, Pau Gasol worked through a series of stretching exercises for his strained left hamstring.
With the Bulls and Cavaliers poised to break their 2-2 in Tuesday's critical Game 5, coach Tom Thibodeau said Gasol is a game-time decision.
"He's feeling a little better, but he has to go through shootaround and feel good enough, warm up (Tuesday) night and see where he is," Thibodeau said. "Pau knows his body well. He's been around a long time. So just trust how he feels."
The Bulls experienced life without Gasol in Sunday's Game 4 loss, and it wasn't pretty. Gasol, who exited midway through the third quarter of Game 3, is the type of dead-eye shooter who can stop the long scoring droughts the Bulls experienced in Game 4.
Playing with more pace would help too. Far too often in Game 4, the Bulls found themselves in late-shot-clock situations, their half-court offense stagnant.
"I would say it starts with me, pushing the ball, getting everyone to run with me, getting everybody to their spots a little quicker so when we are down here, we're not holding the ball too long and going against the shot clock," Derrick Rose said. "I think that's why we had that lapse in the last game where we didn't score for like six minutes. We shot a lot of jump shots but we were walking the ball up. We didn't run. We didn't attack."
The Bulls vowed to do so Tuesday. And Jimmy Butler had a target in mind. While saying the Bulls' mentality has to be to attack everybody, it's obvious Kyrie Irving is struggling with his sore left leg and right foot.
"The guy is really tough for going out there and competing while he's hurt, and I've got a lot of respect for him, he's a very good player," Butler said. "But this is playoff basketball and any type of edge you can get, utilize it."
