Are the Chicago Bulls on the verge of making history?

The Bulls have rallied from a 0–3 deficit in their Eastern Conference Semifinal series against the Detroit Pistons and have the chance to even the series at three games apiece with a victory tonight in the United Center in Chicago. No NBA team has come from a 0–3 deficit to win a series.

Could this be the first?

Some of the basic evidence is compelling. Most best of seven series that go 3–0 don’t involve evenly matched opponents, but this series does. The Pistons enjoy a slight advantage in won-loss record, 53–29 to 49–33, but the Bulls were superior in secondary factors like point differential, 5.0 to 4.2, and Chicago won the season series three games to one with two blowouts in their favor. So if anything, it was a bit of shock that this series started out 3–0 and to some degree what we’re seeing here is what the business desk would call a market correction. So these are two teams whose track records suggested a competitive series, and, albeit by the most unlikely route possible, we have one. Will it continue? For that we need to look a bit deeper at the numbers.

This has been a hard series to get a grip on because of the flukes. Four of the five games have been routs and the one with a singledigit victory margin, Detroit’s 81–74 win in Game 3, was essentially two routs packed into one game (the Bulls won the first half, 44–28 and the Pistons prevailed after intermission 53–30). Also, shooting has been all over the map. The Bulls, a team that shot 45.7% from the field during the regular season, have managed only 41.5% in the series, but that’s on the rise thanks to their scorching 57.3% (including 72% from the field in the first half and 62.5% from behind the arc overall) in Game 5.

Conversely, the Pistons came into the series with one of the hottest offenses in the league. Against Orlando, they managed an Offensive Efficiency (points per 100 possessions) of more than 116 points per 100 possessions and shot better than 44% from behind the arc. In this series, the Pistons have been shooting only 43% overall and scoring 101.3 points per 100 possessions.

Of course, it isn’t stop-the-presses news that the Bulls defense is good or that their outside shooting is somewhat streaky. If either team gets hot in the way the Pistons were in the early games or that the Bulls were on Tuesday, then a win is in the bag, but that’s nearly impossible to forecast.

The biggest thing in the Bulls’ favor is their improved deployment of the reserves. In the early part of this series, Chicago coach Scott Skiles used his rookies, guard Thabo Sefolosha and forward Tyrus Thomas, sparingly except for garbage time. It’s understandable from the long-term perspective of developing both players in a gradual manner, but in a conference semifinal playoff series, short-term objectives should outweigh the long-term plan.

Thomas has been a beast against Detroit. In the four regular season contests, he played 53 minutes, scored 33 points on 60% shooting, grabbed 21 rebounds (11 offensive), blocked four shots and made one steal. If the bright lights of the playoffs are getting to Thomas, it isn’t showing. Tuesday night, in his first major burn of the series, he filled up the stat sheet with 10 points, six boards, and five steals in 21 minutes. Most important, he’s taking minutes from forward Andres Nocioni who hasn’t looked right since his return from a knee injury a month ago.

For two evenly matched teams going into two season-deciding games, Thomas is a potent factor. Strategically, it isn’t hard to see why. Although Detroit doesn’t get hammered for it the way the Bulls do, the Pistons are also a perimeter-oriented team with a lack of low-post presence. When he’s in the game, the Bulls have four players who can roam the perimeter with either Rasheed Wallace or Chris Webber, and he’s a much better rebounder than either of those two. The Bulls offense had struggled mightily until Tuesday night. With Thomas and Ben Wallace under the boards, the Bulls perimeter scorers, guards Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich and forward Luol Deng, can feel pretty confident of a second chance if they miss. The Pistons have an athletic young power forward of their own in Jason Maxiell, but so far he hasn’t received comparable burn.

Is Thomas enough of an advantage for the Bulls to make history? I think so, but a scheduling quirk will probably prevent it. Game 6 is tonight, then there’s a three-day wait until Game 7 Monday night at Auburn Hills. That hiatus should be enough time for Pistons coach Flip Saunders and his staff to alter their gameplan for Game 7. They came into the series having lost three out of four to the Bulls and made the appropriate changes. It’s easy to imagine them doing it again.

If that scenario plays out, the Bulls would land in the history bin with the ’03 Blazers and the ’94 Nuggets as teams that erased a 0–3 deficit and forced a seventh game. No matter what, this series has gone from a cakewalk to another chapter in a storied rivalry between Chicago and Detroit.