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Hawks and Bulls square off in pivotal Game 3

May 6, 2011 - 2:34 PM (Sports Network) - The scene shifts to the Peach State Friday for the pivotal Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals set between the top-seeded Chicago Bulls and the upstart Atlanta Hawks.

The Bulls evened the series on Wednesday in the Second City when Derrick Rose received his MVP hardware prior to the game and then scored 25 points to lead Chicago to an 86-73 victory over the Hawks in Game 2.

Before the contest, NBA commissioner David Stern handed Rose the Maurice Podoloff Trophy as the youngest MVP in league history. The 22-year-old struggled with a 10-of-27 performance from the field, but added 10 crucial assists and six rebounds to help the Bulls square the best-of-seven set at one apiece.

"It's been a long year. This right here is for the city of Chicago, more than anything," Rose said prior to the contest.

Rose twisted his left ankle in the final seconds of Game 1, aggravating an injury he originally suffered in the first round of the postseason against Indiana. Two nights later he showed little sign of the injury.

"My ankle is fine, it wasn't a factor in the game," Rose said. "I just tried to push the ball, play at my pace. My ankle was good."

He did account for eight of his team's 14 turnovers, however.

"Eight is probably very high," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. "He's a risk taker, but that's the way he has to play. We want him to be aggressive. Most nights his turnovers are low and we know going on the road we have to take better care of the ball."

Joakim Noah tallied 19 points and 14 rebounds for the top-seeded Bulls, who also received 14 points and 12 boards from Luol Deng. Carlos Boozer, who is dealing with a turf toe problem, had just eight points on 4-of-12 shooting and was booed by his home crowd.

Jeff Teague, filling in for an injured Kirk Hinrich at point guard, had 21 points for the fifth-seeded Hawks.

Atlanta had surprised the Bulls, 103-95, in the opener on Monday, but Chicago's defense keyed in on Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford in Game 2. Johnson, who had 34 points in the opener, scored 16 in Game 2. Crawford, an ex-Bull, tallied 22 points off the bench Monday, but was limited to 11 on 2- of-10 shooting on Wednesday.

"They came out and applied pressure," Teague said. "They made every catch we got tough. They came on Joe and double-teamed him a lot, kind of frustrated us because he had it going in the first game. We hopefully will make some adjustments for the next game."

The Hawks, who have lost 16 of their last 17 Eastern Conference semifinal games, shot 51.3 percent from the field in the opener, but just 33.8 percent in this contest.

"We did a very bad job first half with our shot selection and it carried over pretty much the rest of the game," Hawks coach Larry Drew said. "We had opportunity after opportunity, but we were our biggest enemy tonight on the offensive end. We just did not do a good job executing. We took bad shots."

The Bulls won two of three from Atlanta in the regular season. All three games took place over a three-week span in March with the Hawks lone win by three points at Philips Arena. Conversely, the Bulls two wins (one at home and one in Dixie) were by 18 and 33 points.

The teams have met four times previously in the postseason dating back to 1966-67 when the Hawks called St. Louis home. Each club has taken two series, the Hawks in '66-67 and '69-70 and the Bulls in '92-93 and '96-97.

Game 4 of the set will also be in Atlanta on Sunday.