New Rivalry Developing

As mentioned in the Basketball Diaries this morning, Dwyane Wade sprained his wrist last night, and James Posey tried to take Luol Deng's head off.

It's nothing new when the Bulls are playing the Heat, or any team coached by Pat Riley for that matter.

Of course, now that one of his players is hurt, Riley is crying about it.

“Hinrich pulled his hand. Hinrich grabbed his hand, which he does all of the time. That’s what he does anytime Dwyane comes off screens. They always either grab his shirt or hand. It’s a little bit of a tactic down below the body. The officials can’t see it. So he had Dwyane’s hand and tried to pull it out of there.”

Poor Pat Riley. All he's done in his career is use players like Xavier McDaniel, John Starks and now James Posey as enforcers. Are any of us supposed to believe that all the incidents involving Posey in the last seven months - the hip check to Hinrich, Tyrus' broken nose, and now the Deng tackle - are mere coincidence?

Hinrich was played a tape of Riley's comments in the locker room afterward while getting dressed.

''I can't worry about Pat Riley -- I just have to worry about myself. He's going to try and do his job, and I'm going to try and do my job. I can't really comment on what he should be worrying about. It's unfortunate [Wade] got hurt, but I wasn't trying to hurt him. I was chasing him off a screen -- then there's contact. I don't know if he got tangled up or whatever, and he started grabbing his hand.''

There appears to be a strong rivalry developing between these two teams, mostly due to their hard fought-playoff series last season. All you have to do is listen to the things players are saying about each other.

''I think [Riley's accusation against Hinrich] was very unnecessary. He should be worried about his players. Posey's always in the middle of something. I think that was a cheap shot at Kirk. Kirk was just playing his normal defense. It was a freak accident.''

-Ben Gordon

Dwyane Wade, as always, treated the situation with class when talking to the media. Of course, we doubt he shared the same reserve amongst his teammates and Pat Riley.

''I'm not into throwing shots at nobody. I really hadn't seen it. I just know I got injured on that play.''

There was also the incident in the fourth quarter after the Heat started fouling Ben Wallace on consecutive possessions to force him to shoot free throws. After sending Ben to the line twice, Wallace came back on defense and stole the ball on a pass from Jason Williams. Wallace then found Ben Gordon on the fast break for an easy layup to give the Bulls more breathing room.

Riley quickly called timeout and, as the teams headed towards their bench, Big Ben could be seen saying something to Riley. We're guessing it wasn't, "Nice suit, coach!"

Clearly, battle lines are being drawn between these two teams, which will make for interesting Eastern Conference viewing the next few months. They meet two more times this season (1/27 in Chicago, 3/7 in Miami) and another playoff series is a likely possibility.

We expect that this won't be the last we hear of physical play between them.