First, let's talk about what TT did right. I challenged him earlier to sit Boozer on the bench in the playoffs when he's playing like crap, and yesterday he did. It would have been nice if TT had realized Boozer was a detriment before he played 27 crappy minutes, but at least he couldn't hurt us for the last 16 minutes of the game. Playing Asik and Rip the whole second half was the right call as well. Asik because obviously they didn't have another big to insert besides Boozer (unless he went to the White Mamba, and we all knew that wasn't happening,) and Rip because he was making things happen offensively.
Now the bad, from least egregious to most:
3. There was no reason for CJ to play the whole 2nd half. Not that I wanted JL3 to come in. But I've been screaming this all series long: What the hell is Mike James on the roster for if not to take over the point guard duties when both of your other point guards are playing terribly? Mike James could not have been any worse on both ends of the court than CJ was. CJ repeatedly lost track of Lou Williams down the stretch (including a particularly egregious one that led to a Williams 3 with 4 minutes left to give the Sixers a 1-point lead,) and also took some ugly jump shots in the 4th quarter, when there was no reason for CJ to be shooting jump shots. Much has been and will be made of Boozer's 1-11, which was bad in the grand scheme of things, but most of that is big-picture, contract and money type stuff. CJ was 2-11 last night, and still hurting us by taking shots in the 4th quarter, which is a far bigger reason we lost.
Also: Decision-making, which we'll get to in a minute.
2. For the second straight playoff series, the opposing coach got the better of TT on the clipboard. For some reason, the Bulls' defensive strategy the last 5 minutes was "switch-on-everything". The Sixers really could have taken more advantage of this one, there were a few possessions that had Elton Brand posting up Rip, but no one on the Sixers managed to recognize it and get it in to him. They did manage to post Iggy up on CJ, but CJ's quick hands saved them an easy 2.
But what really killed the Bulls was every possession in the last 1:15. I'm going to go to the BMO Harris Bank Telestrator here:
1:15- After somehow collecting the rebound after a bad Lou Williams off-balance 3 (where CJ might have been out of bounds, but it's hard to tell,) CJ pushes the ball up the floor to beat the 8 second clock (huge assist by White Mamba here. Watching the replay, CJ is just standing in the corner with the ball when the shot clock hits 20, and you can see Scal right next to CJ yelling at him to get across the timeline. CJ doesn't actually beat the clock, but there's no way the refs are calling a close 8-second violation there), then slows it down to run the clock (the Bulls are up 3 at this point.) For some reason, the play involves a man who is 2-10 on the day dribbling in the corner by himself for 8 seconds, then going over a Deng screen, (which Williams wisely decides to go under,) and takes a contested 3 with 4 seconds on the shot clock.
:56- Because of the long rebound, CJ is forced to try to stay with Iggy on the way back down, and fouls him to keep him from getting an easy layup. Holiday inbounds to Hawes, gets the ball back, comes off a Hawes screen and draws both TBN and Asik to the corner with him. Here's where we miss Jo. Jo is quick enough to either slow Holiday's momentum, just switch on to him for the rest of the possession (allowing TBN to switch to Hawes,) or get back in the paint in time. But it's Asik, so he gets stuck in the corner. Holiday drops it to Young, while Taj has to try to guard both big men until Asik can get back. Rip is caught in no mans land, not wanting to leave Iggy wide open behind the arc up 3.
:38- The Bulls use their last timeout. I'll get to this in a second as well.
CJ barely gets the ball to Rip (again out of timeouts), gets the ball back, dribbles to the corner, and sets up the screen and roll with Asik, which was probably the best run play of the game. It is, of course, a small miracle Asik caught that ball and finished it. (Assisted by terrible help by Thad Young, he had all the time in the world to rotate over, but he went for the steal instead of just getting in Asik's way. It's not like Asik was going to stop and take an 8-foot jumper.)
:25- The Bulls, for the second time in the last 5 minutes, allow the Sixers to roll the ball to the frontcourt with no time being taken off the clock (considering they won the game with 2 seconds left, those ticks were pretty important). Iggy gets CJ switched on to him, but doesn't take advantage of it and dribbles over to Holiday. Holiday dribbles to the pain and gets stuck, kicking it back to Thad Young, who drives and makes a ridiculous scoop shot over Ronnie.
:12- Stacey- "You get your foul shooters in the...(pause, realizes the Bulls are out of timeouts) You find your free throw shooters."
CJ dribbles up court, and gets clearly fouled by Holiday with 10 seconds left. (You can clearly see Collins screaming at the refs for a foul while CJ is still coming downcourt. You know what happens next. I've said it for the last 2 years, CJ needs to get better at leading a break with a man advantage. Even if the Bulls were down 1 there, and needed a bucket instead of needing CJ to pull it back out, that wasn't a good pass. CJ always passes the ball too early. If he takes just one more dribble towards the corner, he's either fouled by Hawes or Williams, or Hawes has come away from Asik enough for Asik to finish that dunk. Because he passes so early, Hawes has time to get back to Asik and foul him. (Flagrant? Maybe, but you can't really call that there.) If CJ is back in a Bulls uniform next year, he's got to get better at this part of his game. That and, ya know, not passing the ball to 45% free throw shooter up 1 with 7 seconds left in an elimination game.
:7- Between Asik free throws, Stacey with more premonition: "Watch the runout. Ronnie Brewer and CJ Watson got to watch the runout on a miss..." Man, I wish they had heard you.
Asik's second free throw goes up. Taj is pushed to the middle by Hawes, and Iggy comes behind, sealing him off. Deng, for some reason, tries to go under Thad Young, and only succeeds in putting himself directly under the basket, where he's no help to anyone. Ronnie follows Holiday into the lane (where Holiday is boxing out Asik,) but gets stuck behind him somehow. It was kind of like Ronnie didn't know whether to play safe defense on Holiday, or crash for an offensive rebound, so he did neither. Holiday does a great job of just standing in Brewer's way, too, so he can't help on defense. CJ just stays with Lou Williams on the wing the whole way, instead of coming over and stopping the ball. (You have to give a good amount of credit to Iggy, he was significantly faster than any of the Bulls to get down the court. You can't even blame it on the Bulls' minutes, as Iggy played the whole 2nd half as well.)
:2- The Bulls call a timeout, move the ball to halfcourt, set up a play, and...
Oh, wait, no that's what they would have done had they HAD ANY FUCKING TIMEOUTS LEFT. Which leads to problem #1:
#1: TT overmanages to Lou Pinella proportions. The most useful thing a timeout can do for you, more than killing momentum or setting up a play, is to move the ball to the frontcourt late in a close game. But for that to be true, you have to save some timeouts for the end.
Know who always has a timeout late in a game? Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson. Phil would let his team play through bad stretches, not only showing faith in his players, but saving those timeouts for when they're really necessary. Same thing with Pop. Or he could have used it on the possession before to get Korver and Rip in the game for Ronnie and Asik. You can't play offense/defense when you have no timeouts, so here are the FT percentages of the players that played the final minute:
CJ- 81%, TBN- 56%, Deng- 77%, Taj- 62%, Asik- 46%. You have a timeout, you can take Asik and Ronnie out and have Taj inbound to 4 guys all over 75% from the line. Because you used your timeouts to set up set plays with 4 minutes left, that's why your last 4 minutes were chaotic.
Is it fair to always compare TT to coaches like Pop and Jackson? I'm forced to by everyone who seems to think the sun shines out of his ass all the time. There's a reason those two men have won 15 of the last 21 championships. And both of them are known for not overmanaging (I'd also say Rudy T and Rick Carlisle fall onto the more relatively mellow side of NBA head coaches, leaving only Riley, Larry Brown, and maybe Doc Rivers as more uptight championship coaches.
TT makes those three look like Tommy Chong. And story upon story is written about how this is a good thing. It's not. It leads to all your best players being injured, your 4th best big man playing more minutes than your 1st or 2nd (depending on the day) because you're too stubborn to just start two power forwards, and running out of timeouts with 2 minutes left in a close game.
This is not how you win championships.
Also, you need better players. But I'll get to that tomorrow.
Nice analysis.
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