From The WARR Vault: An Ode to Jo(akim)
A salute to one of the most beloved Bulls there ever will be
Tonight the Chicago Bulls will pay tribute to one of the most unlikely stars of the franchise’s history, Joakim Noah, as the two teams he’s most associated with — the Bulls and Knicks — clash at the United Center.
This piece was originally published in April of 2013 when Joakim Noah’s partially injured stand defined the Chicago Bulls’ seven-game victory over Brooklyn in Round 1 of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.
Game 2 of the Brooklyn series inspired this piece, but Noah saved his best for the series’ deciding game, one of the greatest performances in his run for Chicago — featuring 24 points, 14 rebounds and six blocks — can be seen here.
Read this piece here, complete with a commentary of the media’s treatment of Derrick Rose at the time.
His face told the story, in all its red glory
The player named Jo, with pain thereabout his toe(s)
And heel and arch, down the court he did march
An effort worthy of prose, but not for the wither of a Rose
To put it frankly, Joakim Noah put on one of the great playoff performances in Chicago Bulls history on Monday, not necessarily production-wise but because of what it meant both in the moment and in the swirl of opinion around him and the team.
Playing off a bad plantar fasciitis, Noah set the physical tone from the post (Kirk Hinrich doing so from the perimeter) in the Bulls’ 90-82 win in Game 2 versus the Brooklyn Nets, which evened the series up at 1-1 and set the Bulls up for a chance to take control of the series starting tonight at the United Center for Game 3 (7:30 pm central).
What made Noah’s performance truly special starts in the moment, as excerpted in the video above, where he took over late in the game. Over the final 7:39 minutes of the game, Noah scored nine points, six rebounds and his game-defining block on Brook Lopez- those contributions all the majority of his 11 points, 10 boards and two blocks. The big man’s physical prowess in the face of assured pain was a showcase of sacrifice for a team that looked woeful just two days before, a team looking like it was volunteering for a four-game sweep.
That story line writes itself, but making it even juicier was the fact that on the sideline while this was happening, the Bulls’ franchise sat in his updated prom suit, showing fast twitches in celebration that observers thought would be of better use in basketball shorts in the space a few feet in front of where he stood (and jumped for particularly good plays).
Thoughts on that are for another section of this piece, more on Noah:
Though his career has had a certain forward momentum throughout, this year was a particular tipping point for the pony-tailed one. It was expected that Rose was not going to be a part of the Bulls’ proceedings for at least the half-way section of the season back when the season was in its infancy, so it was only natural to expect more of each Bull no matter their station on the squad.
For Noah, more meant treating this situation like the opportunity to shine that it was- to not just be a facilitator and a defensive stopper, nor a goofy pothead or a seersucker-dressing free spirit– it was time to be a star. Noah proceeded to do his thing, becoming not just a star, but an All-Star for the first time, averaging over 11 points and rebounds a game for the first time as well as his first time over two blocks a game and a career-high of four assists a game, blowing away his previous best of 2.5 apg in the previous season.
Noah has become Charles Barkley’s favorite player and he has been the immediate draw for those outside Chicago when they get to see the Bulls on national TV and such.
Monday was such a showcase and it was the kind of showing that the Bulls have not often got from their post players; past postseason highlights mostly came from the perimeter (Mike, Scottie, take your pick). That block though, that block had Tom Boerwinkle in its DNA, it had his scrappiness and overachieving nature as well as that of Van Lier, Sloan, Love and later Rodman and Cartwright and Longley, to bring it back closer to Noah’s position.
The red face, the primal scream (take note Boozer: only do it after a real difference-making play), it indeed told a story as old as the franchise itself, as the city itself– do what you got to do to survive, make it happen no matter what suffering comes along with it.
Joakim Noah is my favorite Chicago Bull right now and he should be yours too.
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