Here are 10 numbers made of delight from Game 5.
8. Early in the fourth quarter, the Bucks blocked Derrick Rose three times in less than one game minute. That is ridiculous. Then they waited a few minutes to block Rose again, but when they did, my how it was pleasant. With the Bucks up 92-88, Giannis Antetokounmpo made fine use of his wings to not only block Rose in the lane, but push the ball the other way with just 38 seconds to go. It was such a controlled block that it might as well have been a steal. But it was a block, the eighth of the fourth quarter for the team, and third of the fourth quarter for Giannis.
10. Speaking of blocks, if you are wondering how Rose and Jimmy Butler combined to miss 31 shots, you could start with the fact that they were blocked a combined 10 times by the Bucks. Rose was blocked six times and Butler four times.
10. And speaking of 10s, John Henson pulled in 10 rebounds in the fourth quarter alone. Overall, he finished with 14 rebounds in 22 minutes. He also managed to not commit a single foul, while everyone else on the Bucks had at least two.
29.4%. In addition to the rebounds, Henson was fantastic protecting the basket. When defending at the rim, Henson held the Bulls to just 5-17 shooting, or 29.4 percent.
14-2. Talk about finishing quarters. The Bucks outscored the Bulls 14-2 in the final minute of the four quarters. The Bulls did not make a shot from the field in the final minute of any of the four quarters. Now we have talked about finishing quarters.
16-16. The Bucks entered the game shooting just 62.5 percent on free throws throughout the first four games of the series. In the regular season, they were above average at the line (75.7 percent), so they were due for an improvement. But a perfect 16-for-16 night at the line? Well, striped kudos to Giannis (1-1), Zaza Pachulia (1-1), Khris Middleton (3-3), Michael Carter-Williams (2-2), Jared Dudley (2-2), O.J. Mayo (5-5) and Jerryd Bayless (2-2) for that.
0. That represents the combined total number of field goals made, free throws made, threes made, points, rebounds, steals, assists and blocks from Mike Dunleavy in 21 minutes. He picked up four fouls and that was all. Highly unlikely that he will be so far off again in the next game, but shutting Dunleavy down so completely in this one sure helped.
0. That also represents the number of quarters the Bulls won. Incredibly close game that went 23-22, 29-27, 24-21 and 18-18.
22/8/9/3. When the Bucks acquired Carter-Williams, the best game of his NBA career was still the first game of his NBA career. Now he has a new one. Electrically suave in just about every way, he shot an outrageous 10-for-11 in the paint and seriously limited the jumpers to go 10-15 overall from the field. In a fourth quarter full of far-fetched sequences, one of the most fetching of all was his floating, running, banking hit over Rose to go up 88-83 (right after Gasol had pulled the Bulls within three and the Chicago crowd was igniting), followed by his trailing block of Butler seven seconds later. By the way, the numbers stand for 22 points, eight rebounds, nine assists, three blocks… along with one sprained ankle in the middle of it all.
6. In his 46 minutes and 32 seconds on the court, the Bulls outscored the Bucks by three points. In his one minute and 28 seconds off the court, the Bucks outscored the Bulls by nine points. We are talking about Butler, who once again showed star power with 20 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and four steals. But the Bucks made the point-scoring life as rough as possible for Butler in the fourth quarter, and he missed his final six shots from the field to go 5-of-21 overall. It started on the very first possession of the fourth quarter, when Butler tried posting up O.J. Mayo, who pushed him all the way out to the three-point line. Then the double came, and the Bulls ended up swinging around to Tony Snell for a long, contested, two-point jumper. It did not go in.