The Sixers may have lost Game 1, but it would be the Bulls who would be left hurting, literally.
With just one minute left in the 4th Quarter, the whirling dervish better known as Derrick Rose sustained a Torn ACL, a brutal injury that sidelined him for the rest of the 2012 Playoffs, and most likely next season as well.
But the Sixers were given a great opportunity, and one they could not let go to waste.
They would take advantage.
It would be Jrue Holiday and Lavoy Allen who would supply the offense in the First Quarter. Holiday scored 8 points and Allen would contributed 4 off the bench. The Sixers did not allow any easy chances down low, either.
The Bulls would shoot just 4-11 from inside the paint.
However, they would hold a 28-25 lead.
In the Second Quarter, the Sixers would make a living inside of the paint, scoring 14 of their 22 points from inside the paint. Those baskets would come from fast break opportunities, and the Sixers made the Bulls pay. Holiday would go 5-5 before missing his first shot, contributing 9 points in the second. Lou Williams dropped 6 of his own in the Second, scoring four of those six from the line.
Yet the Bulls would be relentless from the floor, and Joakim Noah and John Lucas would provide most of the offense in the second. Lucas had 11 points, and Noah had 8 points of his own.
The Sixers found themselves down 55-47 at Halftime, but they would not allow the game to get out of reach.
The Third Quarter was there's for the taking. The Bulls were limited to 14 points, and missed 15 shots from the floor in the Third Quarter alone. Meanwhile, the Sixers commanded the boards, and just like they had in the second quarter, they got out on the fast break. Evan Turner had 11 points, and Jrue Holiday had another stellar quarter with 7 points.
Going into the Fourth, the Sixers had a commanding 83-69 lead. They refused to give that up.
The final Quarter looked like a Harlem Globetrotters game. The Sixers piled on dunk after dunk after alley-oop, and the Bulls were left drooling.
Lavoy Allen, the Temple rookie who had his minutes depleted at the end of the Regular Season had 9 points in the Fourth, and 11 total on the night.
The Bulls attempted to put up a fight, but the game was out of hand.
Final score in Chicago: Sixers 109, Bulls 92.
Jrue Holiday had a Playoff career high of 26 points, along with 6 assists.
Lou Williams and Evan Turner had 20 and 19 points, respectively, and the two also had 6 assists a piece.
The Box Score looked like something you had seen from a Sixers game very early in the season, with six scorers in double figures.
No shock that the Bulls were missing Derrick Rose, as the guard tandem of John Lucas and C.J. Watson merely could not get the job done.
One big part of D-Rose's game is his ability to get out and run. Without him in the lineup, the Bulls had a measly 8 fast break points.
The Sixers had 25, with 7 points coming off of 9 Chicago turnovers.
Game 3 is back in Philadelphia on Friday night, and the momentum has swung the Sixers way.
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