Chicago Bulls fall to Miami Heat for the final playoff seed

The Kaseya Center was home to about as gritty and physical of a play-in game as you could ask for. With the final playoff spot on the line, the Chicago Bulls met the Miami Heat in South Beach and battled for about 46 minutes, until Jimmy Butler and Miami took over in the final 120 seconds.

The Bulls were up five with about three and a half minutes to go, but the Heat were able to slow the game down and find quality looks against the stingy Bulls defense in order to come back and pull away.

The Chicago Bulls surprisingly brought the energy they needed to compete against the Heat, but it was not enough.

While a lot can be said about the team that loses, the effort that the Chicago Bulls showed in both play in games cannot go unnoticed. It may have not been there at all times, but they really did put their hearts into these games, with guys like Alex Caruso and Patrick Beverly leading the way with nonstop energy and hustle.

Billy Donovan will catch a lot of fire for how this season ended. I do believe that is more than fair, but he did his job in both play in games. We saw him outcoach Nick Nurse against the Raptors and against the Heat the Bulls not only had a strong gameplan, but they also made good adjustments after half. Max Strus put up 23 points in the first quarter and did not score again until late in the fourth quarter. Donovan should be evaluated by ownership and the front office going into this next offseason, but he should not receive all the blame for how the season ended.

Zach Lavine, after putting up 39 points against the Raptors, unfortunately could not repeat his heroics. In 41 minutes, Lavine had 16 points on 6/21 shooting, and he missed all six threes he took. He finished as a -8 on the game. It was a disappointing outcome for the Bulls max-contract superstar and will undoubtedly lead to more concerns about his consistency as the offseason starts.

The rest of the cast played somewhat well. Demar DeRozan had 26 points and nine assists. Coby White continued to impress off the bench scoring 14 points on 4/6 shooting from three. Alex Caruso was great once again, playing elite defense (even though he fouled out) and hitting four threes as well. Unfortunately, when two of the three core players fail to make an impact (Lavine and Vucevic), the Bulls could not answer the 62 combined points from Butler and Strus.

It will be interesting to see how fans and the team react to this game. With rumors going around that Donovan and Vucevic are wanted back by the front office for the future, how will they look to retool going into next season? This team could not get the job done all year, and even a playoff berth would most likely not change their fate.

The Bulls played some great basketball against the veteran Miami Heat team. They matched them in terms of physicality all game but the clutch three-point shooting of Max Strus and veteran playmaking of Jimmy Butler ultimately stood out.  The Chicago Bulls will pack their bags for a long offseason and the Miami Heat will try to capture some of their playoff magic against the top seeded Milwaukee Bucks.