Boston OT party

The Bulls found a way to force another overtime against the Celtics, but ended up down just two points and one tooth. Brad Miller needed two free throws to tie it with two seconds left in OT, but missed the first, possibly because he had lost several ounces of blood after getting a tooth knocked out.

Though Ben Gordon had a team-high 26 points, Kirk Hinrich was probably their best player. Gordon played through a strained hamstring, but continually forced up bad shots--he was just 6-for-21 from the floor. Hinrich scored 19 points on just 12 shots from off the bench, and it was the Bulls' 24-5 point advantage off the bench that kept them in the game.

Derrick Rose was tentative as he was in Game 2, settling for jump shots instead of driving the lane. Look, no one expected the Bulls to battle in this series, and Rose set the bar unreasonably high for himself with his stellar Game 1 performance, so while I don't want to be overly critical, Rose needs to be more aggressive and create more opportunities for himself and his teammates for the Bulls to have a chance. He has shown the ability to penetrate and be a leader, but has failed to do so in Games 2, 3 and 5. To his credit, he grabbed eight rebounds and had six assists to go along with his 14 points on Tuesday.

How about Joakim Noah? He had another double-double in Game 5, and is averaging a double-double for the series. Noah had just two double-doubles in the last 18 games of the regular season.

And what a series it's been overall. Four overtimes total, and the first playoff series in NBA history to have three different games go into overtime. There have been nearly 50 tie scores throughout the first five games, and over 80 lead changes.

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If you have not seen "Extras," you are not a good person

In honor of all the extra periods in the Bulls-Celtics series, I want to take this opportunity to share a clip from the HBO series "Extras," starring Ricky Gervais. It's a great show that you should check out if you haven't already:



Cubs notes
-Milton Bradley was back in the lineup Tuesday, and he had two hits, a walk and a run. Though Bradley never went on the DL, he ended up on the shelf (except for a few pinch-hit appearances and one start) for 16 days, one more than the minimum DL stint. Had the Cubs known he'd be limited to rare pinch-hit appearances for that long, they could have called up Jake Fox.

Fox is absolutely tearing it up in Iowa. He's batting .443 with a .506 on-base percentage, and he's already whacked 11 home runs, seven doubles and a triple. Word is he can't play a lick of defense, but neither could Bradley for the last two weeks!

-Every Cubs starter had at least one hit in the 11-3 victory, including Carlos Zambrano who had three. Zambrano also scored three runs, meaning he came across the plate as many times as he allowed the Diamondbacks to do so.

-The Cubs starting lineup had seven consecutive lefties (including switch-hitters batting lefty). Anyone know the record for most left-handed hitters in the same lineup? Considering D'Backs starter Yusmeiro Petit allows lefties to hit 25 points higher than righties, he was probably not real thrilled when he saw Piniella's lineup.

With Lee and Ramirez still expected out on Wednesday, the Cubs could have a difficult matchup against lefty Doug Davis, who you may recall beat them in the playoffs back in '07.