Salmons soars into hero's role

When John Salmons stayed in his seat for the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter, it was easy to think he'd been benched for ineffectiveness.

After all, Salmons was 2-for-10 from the field with 2 rebounds and 2 assists at the time. Still trying to play through a painful groin injury, the Bulls forward wasn't getting much done in Sunday's Game 4.

Then came a pair of overtimes - and suddenly Salmons became a playoff hero. He hit one of the game's biggest baskets, a 3-pointer with 1:47 left in the first overtime after Boston took a 105-100 lead.

Late in the second overtime, he went to the foul line twice. Tyrus Thomas, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon and Joakim Noah all missed an important free throw down the stretch. But Salmons went 4-for-4 in the final 26.6 seconds to keep the Bulls in command.

"It's pressure," Salmons admitted. "Just try to block it all out, talk to God a little bit, get him to calm me down."

His defense was also vital. After Boston's Paul Pierce hit a couple of overtime jumpers over the smaller Kirk Hinrich, Salmons took over the duty and limited Pierce to 1 free throw over six minutes. Pierce scored 6 quick points off offensive rebounds late in the second overtime, but Salmons blocked Pierce's potential tying 3-pointer just before time expired.

In a game where he missed his first 6 shots, Salmons ended up leading the Bulls with 11 points in the two overtimes.

"I haven't been shooting the ball well (38 percent in the series)," Salmons said. "My teammates were just keeping me up, telling me to shoot them naturally and that's when they go in. BG (Gordon) told us before the series started, just try to lose yourself in the moment. That's what I tried to do and not worry about how many shots I'm missing."

(dailyherald.com)