Back in mid-January, following yet another desultory home loss to the Suns, Tom Thibodeau crinkled up his face and offered a quote for the ages about readiness to play.
"If they say we're playing at midnight on the roof, you should be saying let's get the ladders," he said.
As the Bulls trudged off the United Center floor for possibly the last time this season late Monday, 88-65 losers to the Heat, they could've added lifeline to ladders on their checklist of things to pack for Miami.
A season filled with pluck and grit gave way to a night of record-setting offensive ineptitude, with a three-game winning streak against the defending NBA champions the only possible remedy. The Bulls never have won a playoff series in which they trailed 3-1.
They also never had scored so few points or shot so poorly in franchise playoff history. Their 25.7 percent shooting shattered the previous lowlight of 31.1 percent in the Game 7 Eastern Conference finals loss at Detroit on June 3, 1990. Their previous low of 69 points also came on the road against the Pistons in a second-round series on May 5, 2007.
The Bulls also set a new low for playoff points in a quarter by scoring nine in the third.
Memo to Bulls: Wednesday's Game 5 tips at 6 p.m. Central.
"We have a lot left in the tank," Joakim Noah said.
After a season of so much adversity and injury, players unanimously rejected the fatigue angle, even if their performance at both ends suggested otherwise.
"They put a lot of pressure on us with their defense and we didn't execute very well," Noah said. "It's tough. We're disappointed with the way we played, especially in a big game. There's no turning back. We just have to keep fighting."
LeBron James' 27 points, eight assists and seven rebounds led the Heat, who led by as many as 25.
Carlos Boozer's 14 points and 12 rebounds led the Bulls. But like everybody else, he missed a lot, too, clanking 11 of 14 from the field.
After such a season of thrills, Nate Robinson's likely final home game as a Bull featured him missing all 12 shots with four turnovers. He is the just third player in the last 26 years to miss all 12 or more shots in a playoff game.
"Nate's a tough guy," Thibodeau said. "He'll bounce back."
The Bulls came out slower than rush hour on the Kennedy. They missed 11 of their first 12 shots with three turnovers and trailed 11-2 before Thibodeau could scream himself hoarse.
Robinson missed six shots in the first quarter alone, and he and Marco Belinelli set the tone for the Bulls' dreadful 3-point shooting by missing all eight attempts early. They finished 2-for-17 from beyond the arc.
"Every other game (in the series) the first quarter was a battle," Taj Gibson said. "You can't get in a big hole early. That's one thing you can't do in playoff basketball, especially on your home court."
Not even a surprise appearance by Richard Hamilton when Belinelli drew his third foul in the second quarter could fully jump-start the offense, though Hamilton finished with 11. Dwyane Wade briefly exited, hobbling on his sore right knee, and didn't score until a dunk at 7:44 of the third.
It didn't matter. Robinson kept dribbling into double teams and coughed up one of the Bulls' 17 turnovers for a monster breakaway dunk by James, Robinson injuring his left shoulder in the process.
"Gotta keep pushing and play through it," Robinson said.
But when a team's best shooting percentage for a quarter is 30 percent, where does it turn? Name the transgression - jumping to pass, dribbling into traps - and the Bulls committed it on offense.
"We had open shots we didn't make and that took away from our defensive intensity," Thibodeau said. "We can't let that happen."
Or the season will be over.
Twitter @kcjhoop