





CHICAGO – Everything changed on the March night LeBron James had come to the United Center and declared these Chicago Bulls a dirty basketball team. The world's best basketball player insisted that Chicago's hard fouls were "not basketball plays," that the Bulls had crossed into troubling territory.

Of course, the Bulls believed James had used his bully pulpit to influence the way the NBA officiated him. James' greatness promised a closer inspection out of the league and its officials, a strategic understanding that the world would judge harshly the way these Bulls imposed physicality on the four-time Most Valuable Player.

When everyone else watched Chicago's Nazr Mohammed make a run at James, shove him tumbling onto his back on Friday night, the Bulls witnessed something else: confirmation of a conspiracy. Mohammed earned the ejection, and the rest of these Bulls earned the indignation and outrage that they need for public retaliation.

"We're well aware of what's going on," Thibodeau seethed late Friday. "I'm watching how things are going. I watch very closely. What I'm seeing is…

"…We'll adjust accordingly."

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Running out of players, running out of time, Thibodeau will never let these Bulls run out of conspiracies to frame in these Eastern Conference semifinals. The Heat beat the Bulls 104-94 in Game 3 and finally took a 2-1 series lead.

No one pitches "we're getting bleeped" better than Thibs, no one better sells it to his players in a neatly wrapped, pretty bow package of damning disgust. His message is unmistakable and his locker room is fully invested in the brainwashing: The NBA wants us to go away, wants us to leave LeBron James undaunted and unharmed on the way to consecutive championship coronations.

"We're not going to get calls," Thibodeau grumbled. "That's reality."

That's the reality in his parallel universe, where Thibs' post-game diatribe likely promises to inspire a substantial fine from the NBA office. For him, it will be money well-invested to counter consecutive defeats where the Bulls lost composure, lost tempers and ultimately lost playoff games.

Here, Thibodeau needs these depleted Bulls to push further and further into a hard-hitting basketball place. The Bulls want the Heat to lose their minds and lose their way. For a moment, Mohammed did get James to retaliate. For a moment, it had worked beautifully on Friday night – until Mohammed trumped James' tech with an ejection.

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Before Mohammed was ejected in the second quarter, 40 feet from the basket, he wrapped up James on a fast break. As Mohammed grabbed him, James ripped free of him and whipped the Bulls center to the floor. As the official was whistling the technical foul on James, Mohammad never noticed. Beyond livid, he leaped to his feet and made a run at James, pushing him backward and ultimately onto his butt.

"I do believe it warranted a tech," Mohammed said. "We've had guys jumping on Nate's face, guys backing up Marco Belinelli out of bounds. There's been a lot of plays that didn't get ejections.

"A push shouldn't get an ejection. …It was a cheap shot throwing me down."

Nate Robinson told Yahoo! Sports, "You see LeBron in a lot of commercials, a lot of good acting."

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