Blame Game- Bulls-Heat 10/29

Before both of you fans out there get super-excited, you should not expect a return to 2011 posting form from me. This is a just a nice convergence of an exciting (at least on paper) Bulls game with a (semi-miraculous) 11AM start time for me tomorrow. Also, Calvin is going to sleep at 5:30 these days, which will probably not last forever. Anyways, let's have at it.

Before we start assigning blame, let's start here: I'm as excited for the Bulls season as anyone, but the hype the last couple weeks has been kind of insane. Grantland has them #1 in their preseason preview, TNT had a poll before the game that had 29% of respondents picking the Bulls winning the title, behind the Heat's 36%, and ahead of the Spurs, Thunder, and Other. (CSN had the same choices for their pregame poll, and I believe it was 88% Bulls, 12% Heat, and 0% anyone else. Good job, Bulls fans.) Fox Sports just as laughably has them seventh, just behind Brooklyn. I'm going to assume this is a shot at Obama.

I expect the Bulls to be one of the 4 best teams in the NBA all year, and anything less than the Eastern Conference Finals would be a disappointment, although I think a Bulls-Pacers 7 game series will be quite exciting. It's going to be super-important to get that one seed this year, although the Heat probably won't lose sleep over it. Hopefully TT won't pursue it at the expense of the Bulls health, though.

All that is to say, I think the Bulls will be good, but it's way too early to start acting like losing to the Heat in Miami is something we should be ashamed about. You can hate him all you want, and I will fully support your right to do it, but LeBron James is the best basketball player in the world (and for my money, athlete in any sport), and 2nd isn't even close. He still has two very good basketball players backing him up, as well as a bunch of perfectly round-peg role players (I wish Norris Cole played for any other basketball team so I could like him more.) It's OK to be disappointed, we all had high hopes. But the better team won tonight, and that's OK. It's a long season, and the Bulls have a lot more to gain over time than the Heat do.

Blame:
Fred Tedeschi- 50%
It is long past overdue for this man to make an appearance in this space. The "2013 Athletic Trainer of the Year" is a man I wouldn't trust to give me a band-aid for a paper cut. This is a man who sent Jo back on the court during the Sixers series two years ago to hop up and down the court on one ankle in a flipping playoff game. I have no stats right now to back this up, but I feel like the Bulls have more injured players get reinjured (or struggle with the same injury) than any other organization. Maybe all the Bulls injury problems the last few years isn't a coincidence, and there's an underlying reason they can't stay healthy? Like a trainer clearing players to play way too early? Like, say, hypothetically, Joakim Noah tonight?

Jo had no business being on a basketball court. It wasn't as glaringly obvious as the time in the playoffs where he was literally hopping around on one foot, but he quite clearly wasn't effective, and at least TT realized it sooner rather than later. Fred: Do your job. Stop clearing injured players.

Shane Battier- 10%
I submit that Battier is the smuggest player in the NBA. His whole game is just "Oh, I'm going to sit here and hit corner threes and slide under you when you go to the hole." I hate him so much.

Mario Balotelli Chalmers- 10%
Again, it's not Chitown Sports policy to blame the refs, so I'll blame the guy flopping around like a certain soccer namesake of his anytime anyone was within three feet of him, which Joey Crawford was more than happy to oblige. Speaking of which...

TT- 8%
I don't want to bash TT too much, I think he did an excellent job with rotations (which might have been a sore spot with me in the past, maybe), and he deserves all the credit for the Bulls being the type of team to not throw in the towel down 25 in the 2nd half, and cutting it down to 8. But I'm also used to a TT that also works the refs, and for some reason it seemed like he was letting them off pretty easy tonight, when some questionable calls (especially the 2nd on Butler) put the Bulls in early foul-trouble, and having JFB and Lu off the court early led to that huge Heat run.

Dunleavy- 7%
Would be higher, but he pulled it together at the end. I put this on Facebook earlier, sort of tongue-in-cheek, but I'll put it here anyway:

Of course, I think Dunleavy will put it together more and be a significant help going forward. Either that, or we'll come up with some nicknames comparing him unflatteringly with Korver.

Kirk- 7%
Not that Kirk did anything in particular bad, but...-19, dude. Not good.

Lu- 5%
I know foul trouble made it harder for him to get in a groove, but he was 0-5 from downtown.

Tony Snell- 3%
Not really his fault, I'm sure the gameplan did not call for Tony Snell to play 7 minutes tonight. I'm sure TT didn't really want to have his first NBA experience guarding and being guarded by LBJ. But them's the breaks sometime.

Absolved-
Boozer- Now THAT was a performance from a man who doesn't want to be amnestied. If he plays 81 (plus hopefully about 20 or so more) games like that one, the Bulls are going to be better than I thought.

Derrick- Yes, yes, 4-15 and 1-7 from downtown are not good. That will improve when some rust shakes off, and the things we saw from him in the first quarter were enough to truly convince me he still has the explosiveness that makes him Derrick.

JFB- 20 points, 5 steals, 3 boards, 3 assists, 1 block. All those numbers could have been higher without those BS foul calls early, too. I have made some not-great predictions on this blog before, but I feel completely justified with driving the JFB bandwagon since day one. Way to prove me right for once, Jimmy.

Opening Day Blame Game: Cubs-Nationals 4/5

So normally I'd continue to ignore the Cubs until they act like they know what they're doing. Which we can obviously see isn't today, as the Cubs decided to lose in the most Cubs way possible. But the fact that this loss was so self-inflicted makes me want to sound off on it.

Jeff Baker- 45%
What the FUCK were you going in the top of the 8th inning? You looked like a beer league softball player. Wouldn't anyone with even a modicum of baseball instinct put their glove down and at least try to make a play on the ball? It looked like he was trying to get out of the way of the ball as it rolled by like he was a base-runner. Anyways, with any normal first baseman with as much range as Prince Fielder, Dempster has a shutout going through 8.

Kerry Wood- 30%
While he should have been out of the inning a couple of times with the ridiculous strike zone, his WHIP is now 81. That's not OK. While I love Kerry Wood, and can't wait to write his justification in a few rounds, it's obvious he can't blow pitches by people for a third strike anymore. Maybe Wood isn't the right choice for set-up man.

Dale Sveum- 15%
Let's make a deal, Sveum. I won't completely dismiss you as another manager underqualified for your job, and you stop calling for your 36 year old outfielder who has had knee injuries in the past to steal frigging 3rd base.

Carlos Marmol- 5%
The double wasn't entirely his fault, but he would have probably given up 2 home runs if the wind hadn't been blowing in.

David DeJesus- 3%
I thought DeJesus was brought in to improve our fielding, and take pitches and improve our on base percentage. Instead he swung at the first pitch a bunch of times, and botched a catchable fly ball in the 9th inning. Not a great start.

Joe Mather- 2%
I don't know who you are, but maybe when you're put in to be the tying run on third base, and the ball is hit hard three feet away from you, you shouldn't charge headfirst into a sure out. There's no way Tony Campana would have done that.

Absolved-
Ryan Dempster- The silver lining of today was how well Dempster pitched. Maybe if he can keep that up the starting pitching won't be a complete disaster.

Marlon Byrd- While we're at it, Sveum, what the hell is our most reliable hitter doing batting 7th? Please fix this, too.

Third Round Draft Justifications/Bulls-Blazers Blame Game

We're going to try something new tonight. I'm going to mix the draft justifications in with the blame game, because why the hell not? (Full results here)

Will- Luol Deng- 40%
The knock against Lu before Derrick came around was that he was soft, got injured easily and missed a lot of games, then settled for long jumpers instead of going to the hole. While the second part is becoming more and more true, it's probably because the first part is now the opposite problem (follow all that?) I commend him for wanting to be tough and play through his injury, he killed us tonight, both with his shooting (1-7) and getting lit up by Batum and Matthews on the other end. He was a game-worst -11 in 40 minutes, and it's not hard to imagine that game could have been closer had the other wings been playing those minutes.

Gomez- Julius Peppers
I have no real dirt on Peppers, so instead I'm going to talk about Boozer (15%) here. Even when you have a "good" game offensively, you still kill us with your lack of defensive rotation to the help man, which had a lot to do with the Blazers getting so many open shots. TT all of a sudden insists on playing you over Taj in the 4th quarter, so it'd be really nice if you learned to play defense.

Ron- Mike Singletary
Mike Singletary dropped his pants in the locker room to motivate his players. Speaking of crazy coaching decisions...
TT (35%) You were not afraid earlier in the year to sit Joakim and Boozer for Taj and Asik late in games earlier this year. So what the hell is going on lately? The Bulls have been not good defensively lately, and I think it's not a stretch to say it has a lot to do with the fact that for some reason Taj and Asik are averaging under 30 minutes a night combined over the last 6 games (taking out Asik's 33 when Jo had the flu). It's really frustrating watching opponents get off open shot after open shot knowing you have guys on the bench capable of stopping that. Get it together, TT.

Conall- Jeremy Roenick
JR is probably best known by my generation for his skills more in a video game (NHL 94) than on the ice, most notably for his ability to wrap around behind the goalie and score every time, not unlike a certain Baseline Ninja (5%), who did nothing offensively tonight and got lit up by Wesley Matthews on the defensive end. Come on, TBN, even if you're not going to help on offense, you need to at least lock Wesley freaking Matthews down. He's not D-Wade here.

BJ- Patrick Kane
Can I just have the youtube clip of the goal?

And I was living at Southport and Addison at the time, right in the heart of Wrigleyville. There were like 8 bars on that block, and I don't think I got to sleep that night until after 4am because of the celebrations. Only time I've lived through a title celebration like that. I'm as guilty as the next Hawks bandwagoner but that season was fun. I still really like playoff hockey too. For me the past few years it's only been behind NBA playoffs for best postseason.

Sam- Brian Urlacher
As the fantasy draft got into the later rounds, the choices shifted to more nostalgic ones for me. After Jordan, Pippen, Rose and the other truly top tier athletes, the criteria for who you choose becomes a little fuzzier. Who would I want on my team? Of all the players I know of to ever sport a Chicago jersey, who would fit the idea of my favorite kind of Chicago athlete? Who do I enjoy rooting for? Brian Urlacher seemed like a solid choice. Having watched the eight time Pro Bowler for the last 11 years, all of which have been spent in a Bears uniform, I know just how much of a beast he is. His aggressiveness made him Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2000 and the Defensive Player of the Year in 2005. Even though the Bears haven't won a championship with him, he continues to battle through injuries to be a leader on the field. He plays hard and you gotta love that. He wears his captain's patch well.

Ethan- Lance Briggs
Lance crashed his Lambo then walked away from it like it didn't happen, which is the kind of thing I could see Joakim Noah (5%) doing. Either that or not getting up for big matchups, even though LaMarcus Aldridge is kind of a big matchup. Aldridge is really good, but there's no reason for Joakim to be outplayed by him that bad. Also, I'm rubbing the salt in Ethan's wound by talking about Aldridge in the post for his favorite Bear, as he wanted to pick Aldridge on a loophole in the draft, but was vetoed.

Katz- Richard Dent

Hall of Famer and Superbowl XX MVP. Probably had the best defensive post-season run that year. Played 11 seasons for the Bears recording over 100 sacks. Lead the league back to back years in sacks. He is 7 of 27 in NFL History. On a team identity built on defense...Greatest. Bears. DE. of. all. time.

Tristan- Chris Chelios
Chelios always felt like a Chicago guy, but he's known for having some of his best years (and most success) in Detroit, kind of like Rip Hamilton (honorary blame). These are the kind games it would be nice to have a decent offensive shooting guard to carry the load. Wait, didn't we sign one of those over the summer for 5 mil? Because all I see is a waste of space at the end of the bench.

But back to Chelios, who was definitely one of the main reasons I liked hockey back in the early 90s, before I really knew how rare it was to have a defenseman putting up point totals in the 70s year after year. Forget Detroit and Montreal, Chris belonged in Chicago, which is why I think he wasn't a reach in round 3.

Know who else belongs in Chicago? Taj Gibson and JFB (absolved), who did everything they could to win tonight in limited minutes. So let's stop limiting those minutes, TT, so we can beat inferior opponents so we can lock down the all-important #1 seed and first round matchup with the Bucks, avoid the Magic in the 2nd, and potentially have home-court against the Heat. Seriously, TT. Now.

#taj30minutesagame

Blame Game- Bulls-Magic 3/8

There's no shame in losing to a team like the Magic, especially when they're shooting so well from beyond the arc, and the 2nd night of a back-to-back and all. But it's frustrating anyway, because the Bulls really had the Magic where they wanted them, then had too many missed open shots and gave up too many offensive rebounds to pull it out. This was a total team loss for the Bulls tonight, so there's plenty of blame to go around.

Deng- 30%
Lu is 14-41 from the field over the last 4 games, and as you probably noticed, he wasn't even close on a lot of wide open shots. Worse, he wasn't exactly great defensively, either. Yet he played 39 minutes tonight. So I'll get to that later.

Fredo- 20%
I've said before that I love when a streak shooter on the other team gets hot early, since they usually end up shooting their team out of it. Kyle did that to the Bulls tonight. He just need to hit 1 of those 3-4 wide open threes he had in the 4th quarter to make that a different game late, and he didn't. If he hadn't been so hot in the 2nd quarter, he might not have played so much in the 4th.

Derrick- 17%
It always hurts to give Derrick any percent in the blame game, since even when he has a bad game, he still does so many good things for the Bulls offense. But yeah, 6 for 22...

TT- 15%
Yeah, Carlos was having a good game offensively. Know who the only player shooting better than him was? Taj. 6 for 7 from the field, and probably wouldn't have given up terrible offensive rebounds late.

Boozer- 10%
Which is why Boozer is on here at all. He had his usual terrible rotations on defense all game, but Ryan Andersen's offensive rebound with 46 seconds was unforgivable. Boozer just completely spaced out and watched the ball instead of boxing out (which is part of the reason Boozer gets WAY too much credit for his rebounding abilities.) The Bulls get the ball there, and they're down 3 with 45 seconds left and the ball. That offensive rebound sealed the game.

Joakim- 5%
Not terrible, but some silly unnecessary fouls at the wrong times.

Turkish D- 3%
Was Asik the reason we lost? No. But he's not contributing as much as he should be lately.

Absolved-
Taj- I mentioned it above, but he should have played more than 18 minutes tonight.

Jimmy Butler- He couldn't have played worse than Lu. And while I wanted to give TT credit for pulling Lu in the 4th, he could have realized the foul on Turkoglu was a complete flop. Good start TT, now keep giving Jimmy a chance.

Belated Blame Game- Bulls-Heat 1/29

Despite the result, there is plenty of reason to be encouraged by the game yesterday. The lion's share of the damage was done by LeBron, and while TBN did a halfway decent job in the 2nd half of making LeBron take tough shots...he's LeBron. He can make tough shots. Luol is one of the few players in the league capable of either getting the ball out of his hands, or forcing those shots to be even farther out. Bulls-Heat without Deng is just as irrelevant to a future playoff series as Bulls-Heat without LeBron was last year.

That being said, this was a very winnable game. Here's where it went wrong:

Boozer- 40%
In the first half I tweeted that Boozer was making a push to break the 50% blame game barrier. He came down under it with some surprisingly solid play down the stretch (even on defense!!), but points in the first half count just as much as points in the 2nd. And the Heat had waaaay too many easy buckets in the first half caused by Boozer just too slow on the rotation, or not even interested in rotating at all. Boozer, I'm not worried about Udonis Haslem having the ball in the short corner, or Joel Anthony having the ball anywhere, so if LeBron is driving to the hole (*ahem*) IT'S OK TO LEAVE YOUR MAN AND CONTEST THE SHOT! Instead there are a bunch of first-half highlights where LeBron is dunking on an uncontested rim while Boozer just kind of looks up at him with his elbow still on Haslem, boxing him out as if there's going to be a rebound.
Also, a bonus couple of percentage points for not making the pass to a wide open Rip cutting to the basket on the last possession. If Joakim hadn't fouled out, he makes that pass.

Rip- 20%
Rip played pretty nice D on D-Wade, being a big reason he shot 4-16 for the field. Unfortunately, Rip negated that by shooting...4-16 from the field. Rip, you were signed specifically to be another offensive weapon against the Heat. We're not going to have a chance in a theoretical Eastern Conference Finals without more efficient offense from Rip.

ABC-15%
I realize ABC isn't actually responsible for the Bulls loss per se, but they're definitely responsible for more than 15% of my frustration with that game. I still don't know if Wade stepped out on his save of the lose ball with 16 seconds left, because ABC never showed us a definitive replay. And Breen and Van Gundy did a terrible job explaining what was happening (was the call even reviewable? If so, why wasn't it reviewed? If not, why? Instead, JVG was just kind of like "I don't know what's going on. Whatever")
Also, ABC flashed the stat before Rose's missed free throws that he was 29-29 from the line in the 4th quarter. Thanks a lot, ABC.

John Lucas III- 10%
Assigning percentage to JL3 in this game is kind of like being mad at a kitten for losing a fight to a crocodile. But JL3 played 3 minutes and was a game worst -8, of which -8 of which was entirely his fault. Not having CJ was almost as big of a problem as not having Deng, considering that maybe Derrick's missed free throws had something to do with the fact that he played the last 38 minutes consecutively out of necessity. He also had to be extra careful to not pick up a third foul in the second quarter, leading to some easy points for the Heat where Derrick had to be less aggressive than normal.

TBN- 10%
Ronnie somehow went 4-8 from the field, but (and this is the problem with writing the blame game a day late), I feel like those 4 misses were costly.

Derrick- 5%
Not for the free throws, or even missing the last shot, but more for the decision to not hit Rip for the wide open three in the corner. I said the other day in the Pacers post that his decisions would lead to wins later. It might have been yesterday had he made that pass.

Absolved-
Taj- Attacking the basket, playing strong defense, and doing everything except securing that rebound with 16 seconds left. Maybe he deserves a little blame for that, but he was a deserved team-high +7, so he gets absolved.

Joakim- A few good games in a row from Jo. Maybe he has finally played his way back into shape after too much canoodling on the beach in the offseason.

Fredo- Wennington was drooling over Korver's defense in this game tonight on the pregame for the Wizards, calling it "outstanding." I don't know if I'd go that far, but he wasn't a defensive liability and was 3-6 from downtown, which is about all we can ask of him.

3 more games with the Heat in the regular season. Hopefully the Bulls are at full strength next time. Or, dare I say, have Dwight Howard to help on the defensive side?

A Non-Violent Blame Game: Bulls-Grizzlies 1/16

How much of the flow of this game was the exact opposite of the Celtics game the other night? The Bulls came out flat and off-kilter on the offensive end, made a run to make a game of it in the 3rd quarter, then ran out of gas in the 4th. Why we were on the side of it-

TT- 40%
This is what happens when you play guys 40+ minutes a game. One of them can't play because on an injury and the other one looks like he couldn't hit water from the ocean. Deng ended with a line of 8-18 shooting, but 6 of those 8 were at the basket and most of the misses (2-9) from more than 15 feet away hit the front of the rim. He's tired. Know what would help? Not playing him for entire second halves.

After Jimmy Butler drove the length of the court for a dunk in garbage time I believe Doris Burke said "That's why they like him around here, because he can do things like that." Really? They like him around here? Then play him, just 4-6 minutes each half. I promise you it will not be the reason we lose a game, and will keep us from falling out of games like this.

Noah- 15%
I wish he had been able to keep the momentum from the weekend up, but he looked awful today. If you're not going to to help on the offensive end, Joakim, fine, but can you at least stop Marreese friggin' Speights from dropping 16 and 12 on you? That's where that -15 in 22 minutes came from.

Marc Gasol- 15%
I've only seen the Grizzlies play twice this year, the two times they've played the Bulls. In the first game he looked awful. Today, he looked like the kind of player worth 13 mil a year. If he hadn't settled the Grizzlies down when the Bench Mob went on their run, they might have fallen apart like the Hawks did. 19 points on 9-13 shooting and a game high +26

Boozer- 10%
Time for another round of "Is This What Boozer's Shot Chart Should Look Like?"


The answer, of course, is no. Especially because all of those xs off to the side are those stupid turnaround fadeaways with a hand in his face.

John Lucas III- 10%
I'm sorry, I know we love John Lucas because he's short. But the fact is the starting gap between Lucas and Mike Conley is just as big as the one between Derrick and Jeremy Pargo from the first game.
And also, TT, if CJ was capable of playing the entire 2nd half, why wasn't he capable of starting? He could have kept the game from getting out of hand.

TBN- 6%
He's been shooting so well we'll give him a pass for this one, but he had a couple ugly turnovers and just average D as well.

Deng- 4%
This would be much higher, but I blame TT more for how tired Deng looked. At least, I hope that's why Deng got torched by Rudy Gay and kept settling for outside jumpers instead of going to the basket.

Absolved:
Taj and Asik-
I think TT might need to take it one step further. It's not just playing Taj and Asik in the 4th quarter, it's putting them in when we need stops. I know I'm piling on TT today, but I really think that game might not have gotten out of hand if he had gone back to the bench mob with about three minutes left in the 2nd quarter (when Gasol and Gay were having their way at the rim).

CJ Watson- I listened to a Bullsbeat podcast over the weekend, mainly because it was the only recent all-Bulls podcast I could find, but I stopped it when he suggested Lucas should be getting some of CJ's minutes going forward. No. CJ is a legitimate NBA point guard who could play and contribute even more on a team that didn't have Derrick Rose. John Lucas is an injury back-up plan and that's it. Dropping 25 on the Wizards is nice, but today really showed the gap between the two.

OJ Mayo- 2-7 and somehow -12 in a blowout win. I did not want OJ Mayo on the Bulls, and I do not want OJ Mayo on the Bulls.

Free Jimmy Butler. Seriously TT, before more games like this happen.

Boxing Day Blame Game: Bulls-Warriors 12/26

I've had to talk multiple other Bulls fans off a ledge tonight, so I'll just say it here to everyone: Wait until we've played some freaking home games before declaring the Bulls the worst team to ever play basketball. One thing you're going to see a lot of this season is ugly, turnover-filled games. Hopefully going forward the Bulls will be on the other side of these games, but every now and then, the bar eats you (like, for example, in Golden State last year.)

Blame time:
Derrick- 30%
We're not going to win a lot of games when Derrick goes 4-17 for the field. More importantly (and more worrying), I think we're going to see a lot of teams this year follow the Warriors defensive blueprint of this game, which is to collapse everyone when Derrick drives, and make him finish over 3 people, kick it out, or pull up and shoot. For some reason Derrick didn't do a lot of option 3, but it didn't help that Derrick was 1-8 from beyond the arc. That's not going to free up a lot of driving lanes.

Mark Jackson and Monta Ellis- 20%
Mark Jackson was never known as an offensive mastermind, so I was expecting the Warriors' game plan to be "Monta Ellis dribbles around and shoots, Stephen Curry dribbles around as shoots, repeat as necessary." I was aggravatingly surprised by how many creative screen-and-rolls and backcuts were in the Warriors playbook, and how effectively they were run with David Lee in the middle and Dorell Wright keeping Deng honest on the perimeter.

And when the Bulls finally woke up and starting playing their A defense in the 4th quarter, Ellis did what Kobe couldn't last night and made big shots to kill the Bulls' momentum. That's the kind of thing the Warriors and Ellis do sometimes.

Carlos Boozer- 20%
When TT tries to tell me Boozer plays underrated defense (as he did this past offseason), I'm pointing to the play at 7:15 of the 2nd quarter as exhibit A in my rebuttal. Ellis gets by Derrick in the open court, and Boozer, despite being in perfect position to stop the ball and let Derrick recover, just sort of watches Ellis go by. At some point after it was too late it looks like Boozer thinks to himself, "oh, I'm supposed to help here", and springs into action. Thanks, Boozer.

And his non-help defense on David Lee left a lot to be desired, too. Last night Boozer didn't hurt us defensively and helped offensively. Tonight he didn't help on either end.
Rip Hamilton- 10%
The best we can hope for from Rip is what we saw in the 2nd preseason game against Indiana, where he was opening up shots for everyone, scoring in transition, and knocking down open jumpers. The worst case scenario? That was tonight, when he was Boozer 2.0. Rip was 5-12, but some of those 7 misses were wide open, and he just got absolutely torched by Monta when he was on him. You can't be a guy who's defensive liability and disappears on offense, Rip. We already have one of those.

TT- 5%
I very rarely felt like TT was outcoached last year, but he was tonight. TT is not dumb, he knows the right thing to do (switch to Deng on Kobe last night, bring in Taj to help protect the rim tonight), but it's taking him way too long to pull the trigger. I have no idea why that is.

On the flip side, I've always loved how if the bench mob takes a game that looks out of reach and makes it interesting, he leaves them in to finish. Kudos for that, TT.

Baseline Ninja- 3%
Ronnie, it makes it sooooo hard for me to defend you as a viable shooting guard on a championship team when you can't make shot to save your life, even from the free throw line. He had a game worst -16, but the D wasn't bad, Ellis just made tough shots over him.

Turkish D- 2%
Last night's rebound rate was 8 boards in 20 minutes. I like that. Tonight's rebound rate? 0 boards in 10 minutes. That's...not OK.

Absolved:
CJ Watson
3-10, yes, but he changed the momentum and the energy of the game when he came in. Tom tried to convince me the Bulls need what Bill Simmons calls an "irrational confidence guy". I think CJ fits the description.

Fredo
Just when you think we have him figured out, the Bulls defense actually improved with Korver on the floor in the 4th quarter (a lot of that is because he came in at the same time as Taj, but Kyle did his part and knocked some 3s down, which is all we can ask of him.)

Luol Deng
Lu continues to be our most consistent player, keeping us in the game in the 3rd quarter. Something I want to see from TT going forward: don't be afraid to switch Deng onto a smaller guard when they're hot. Deng might have made some of those shots Ellis hit a lot harder, and I think Rip and TBN could have handled Dorell Wright if he tried to post them up.

Think of this opening trip like the circus trip, people. If we come out of it .500 going home, we'll be OK. If you feel anxious, consult the Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy advice at the top of the post. Thank you and enjoy the flight.

Blame Game: Hawks-Stars 10/7

At least until the NBA lockout is lifted (wishful thinking), it looks like the Blackhawks get to be the primary source of my blogging energy. Why not write more about the Bears, you say? Good question. The only thing I can say is that Sunday afternoons are not the best time for me to be doing things other than work. Don't expect these to be nearly as detailed as a Bulls one, though.

Hammer-25%
Napping on the 2nd goal, and could have been responsible for more, he's still making me nervous when he has the puck in the corner.

Lehtonen-25%
Ridiculous. The Hawks skated better than the Stars for the last 35 minutes, but Lehtonen made some nice saves to keep the Stars in the lead.

The ice-20%
I know, I know, both teams skated on the same ice. But it definitely slowed the Hawks down, and our speed is an advantage. It's like the Colts (when Peyton is healthy) playing in the mud, and I feel anecdotally like the Hawks had more bouncing pucks they couldn't do anything with.

Craw-15%
Good job with the stick hand, Craw, but work on the glove hand. Those were not the two best goals ever scored against you.

Frolik- 5%
I know Frolik is only playing so much because of the injuries, but I don't like it. The shot in the 2nd period I could have made, and I can barely skate. I'm fine with Frolik on line 3 (maybe Davey B., Frolik, and Bickell?), but he was not in sync with line 2.

Bickell-5%
I'll give him credit for the screen on Leddy's goal, but other than that, he was pretty quiet. I know it's not his game, but as one of the few big men on the roster he needs to find his way in front of the net more.

Pirri-3%
No. I know we need centers but...no.

Q-2%
I thought we were getting more Brandon Saad? Q panics with lines waaay too early, give Saad a little time with Toews and Sharp to find a rhythm. Instead he was on line 4 by the first intermission. Come on, Q, I want to see the kid play.

Alright, Hawks, get it back against them at home tomorrow night.

Blame Game- Bulls/Heat Game 4

There's something we all need to remember while we watch the end of this series. The Bulls weren't supposed to be here. Before the season started, an Eastern Conference Finals appearance was the best case scenario. They almost did themselves a disservice by raising our expectations so much during the season, and playing so fundamentally sound that we didn't think of them like a young team that hadn't been past the first round before. But in the last three games (well, two games that I've seen, although I feel like this applies to game 2 as well) they've looked like a young team, and the Heat have looked like the guys that have been there before. And they have. So while this loss is as painful as a loss has been since Game 7 of the Celtics series from a few years ago, we should do our best to keep things in perspective. That being said, we should have won Game 4.

TT- 40%
I never finished writing a blame game for Game 3, but rest assured, TT would have received a good amount for his unwavering faith in Fredo down the stretch, despite the fact that he isn't hitting shots and even having trouble guarding Mario Chalmers. I just gave him credit in the Hawks series for his newfound flexibility. But for some reason he wasn't trusting himself, Sunday night with Fredo, and tonight with Big Sexy. Yes, I know I wrote this post back in January where I blasted TT for having too much faith in Kurt. But tonight he needed to have a little more faith in him. With Asik out, Boozer and Noah weren't able to handle the minutes they played (49 and 45, respectively), and were clearly gassed down the stretch. A little Kurt Thomas action in the middle there might have helped, and maybe he even stretches the defense out a little by setting good screens and hitting the open 17 footer. It's not like he's a rookie that would be shaken by the moment, or rusty from not having played in awhile. Kurt Thomas is going to be Kurt Thomas on November 1st or June 15th. There is a time and place for Big Sexy, and it was tonight.

The other beef I have with TT right now is the play calls. Standing around and letting Derrick work 1-on-1 is the type of thing VDN would have called, and you don't want to be compared to him when it comes to play calling. After the first try, I think it should have been clear that Derrick wasn't going to get the shot he wanted against LeBron. How about some creativity? Will suggested Korver sets the screen for Derrick, daring the Heat to leave him open again. I would have liked Deng with the ball up top, and Derrick trying to get free off an off-ball screen, with Deng maybe taking it to the hole against the smaller Wade if nothing opened up. But the number of forced shots and 24 second violations in the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter and overtime were a testament to not only the Heat's strong defense, but a lack of imagination in the Bulls offense as well.

Derrick- 40%
I love you, Derrick, but if you hit both your free throws with 1:09 left, we win the game. The 1-9 from beyond the arc, 8-27 from the field, and 7 turnovers (which could have easily been 10 if not for a few lucky bounces) did not help either.

But to reiterate the theme from the opening paragraph, Derrick is 22 years old. It's OK that he can't single-handedly win every game against the Heat just yet, even if we've seen him do it before. The Bulls will learn from this experience, and I bet Derrick never looks this...shaken?... in a playoff series again.

Korver- 10%
Make your open 3s, Fredo. What the hell do you want me to say? I'm on record as saying that 2 out of the 3 between Ronnie, Bogans, and Deng should always be on the floor when LeBron and Wade are, or there's a huge mismatch. While Korver never had to guard either of them this game, the fact that he's having trouble with Chalmers and Mike Miller suggests he should maybe start picking up DNP-CDs in the near future. Maybe see what Rasual Butler can do instead.

Mike Miller/Udonis Haslem (and the underestimation thereof)- 10%
Sometimes +/- is a stupid stat, and tells lies. But when the +/- looks like this, there must be something to it:
LeBron -1
Wade -10
Bibby -11
Anthony -14
Miller +36
Haslem +25

Look at that. +36 in a game you won by 8. I know Miller hasn't shot well, but that doesn't mean he can't shoot well. And you need to be prepared for that. The Bulls weren't.

Absolved:
Boozer- While I'm still mad about the rotational defense, I feel like some of it can be credited to playing 49 minutes as much as just being naturally bad at it, and the last two games he's been good on offense and is finally grabbing boards that aren't just over his teammates.
Big Shot Bogans/TBN- Terrible decision on a 3-on-1 aside, TBN pretty much shut down Wade, and Bogans did as well when he was in (Bogans led the Bulls with a +10). Not much else they can do.
Bennett Salvatore-We ripped him a new one when he made that ridiculous call in Game 4 of the Hawks series, so we should give him credit right now. It takes huge stones to call an offensive foul on the last play of the game against a superstar like James, even if it's the correct call. No one outside of Chicago would have complained that loudly if he had swallowed the whistle there. Good job, Salvatore (Crawford, on the other hand...)

Blame Game- Bulls/Hawks Game 4

It's a chitownsports policy not to assign blame in a Blame Game to the refs. So I'll refrain from giving Bennett Salvatore any here. But I will say that the game wasn't over when Salvatore made an "inadvertent whistle" (where he clearly put his arm up signaling a foul, then somehow changed his mind.) So you blew the whistle and put your arm up on accident? Or did you make a call, then get embarrassed and make it worse? And why would it be a jump ball, and not Bulls' ball on the side? I've never seen a call like that made at any level. Anyways, on to the blame for those actually in the game.

Team Rotations on D- 50%

The biggest difference between this game and the others in the series was how many easy shots the Hawks got. The Bulls did an excellent job on most players individually (not Josh Smith, who we'll get to in a minute), but whenever they had to go through a screen, someone was left open. TT teams don't do that. I'm sure the Bulls will be going through tape tomorrow and fixing their mistakes. Hopefully they'll take the lessons to heart in game 5.

Derrick's shot selection- 20%
I was trying to figure out how Derrick went 12-32, when he only took 3 threes and 5 shots total from beyond 15 feet. It just seemed like tough layups that usually fall for Derrick weren't falling tonight. In the 4th, though, the Hawks did a much better job collapsing on Derrick, and he was throwing up shots anyway. He made just enough to keep doing it, but there were some key possessions when someone else was wide open. I have faith in Derrick, but we need to remember this is his 3rd year in the league. He's going to get better at deciding what to do with the ball in those moments. Hopefully quickly.

Fredo- 15%
1-8 from the field, -13. If he's not hitting, he's not helping. Maybe Derrick kicks some of those out to him if he wasn't quite so cold. He's a streak shooter though, so hopefully at home they start falling again.

Boozer's D- 5%
Don't get me wrong, Boozer had a good game on offense. But Josh Smith had 23 points, 16 rebounds, and a game-high +18. And most of that was on Boozer, who just couldn't keep up with him on or off the ball. He wasn't the only defensive liability for the Bulls tonight, but he was certainly the biggest. And Josh Smith having a good game inside is one of the main keys to the Hawks success.

Deng's 2nd half- 5%
He came out strong, but disappeared in the 2nd half. They need Deng to stay aggressive the whole game to take some of the load off of Derrick. But tonight Deng sat outside shooting jumpers and staying away from the basket, which wasn't helpful. The Bulls won Game 2 and 3 by outworking the Hawks, and Deng was a big part of that. Not having that in Game 4 was a problem.

The Bench Mob- 5%
14 points (9 of those Taj), 9 rebounds (8 of those Asik). The Bulls need much better numbers from the bench to win games 5 and 6. It would be nice if TT would give them a little more trust as well, though. They were pulled quickly in the 4th, and with Derrick in for the whole 4th, I felt like they never really got a rhythm going. I think they would have been better off giving Derrick a few minutes of rest and letting the Bench Mob work together.

I still expect the Bulls to win Games 5 and 6 and wrap this series up. They need to come out emphatically at home though, and work much better as a team defensively

Blame Game Hawks/Nucks Game 7

Campoli- 100%

Fuck him.

Blame Game- Bulls/Pacers Game 4

Let's get this out of the way before we start: I don't think there's any type of ref or league conspiracy or anything against the Bulls. It doesn't make sense at all. The Bulls are a MUCH bigger market and fan base, if anything the league should want the Bulls to advance and play the Magic (sorry, win a 3rd game before I believe in you, Hawks), and the Celtics/Heat winner. I think there were some bad calls made against the Bulls (both times Dunleavy went to the line for 3 shots, he wasn't fouled), and some against the Pacers (like when Derrick fell on his own on the way to the rim and they called it on Price). The refs weren't good, but they weren't to blame for this one. Who is to blame?

That God-Awful final play call- 35%
I know it's not fair to give a lot of blame to one play, that wouldn't even necessarily have won the game anyway, but there are so many levels of stupid on this play it's hard to swallow. Let me take you to my imaginary Harris Bank Telestrator.
Deng taking the ball out of bounds, the rest of the Bulls in a diamond shape with Korver at the top of the key, Derrick under the basket, and Noah and Booze on the elbows to set screens. (Go ahead and roll it) Derrick goes under Joakim's screen to the corner, Deng passes it to Jo on the wing. Question #1: Why is Derrick not getting the ball somewhere where he can work with the ball? Is this a play for a quick two, or a 3 all the way? Derrick sets Deng some kind of screen, then tries to get the ball from Noah, but Jones defends it well and now Derrick is sitting 5 feet behind the line with nothing to do, Deng is stuck in the corner, and Boozer and Fredo are hanging out on the other side of the court. Deng comes back, can't get the ball, and curls to the basket (alright, freeze it right there). Deng has the ball at the free throw line. Joakim and Derrick are useless on the near sideline, Fredo is open behind Deng but four feet behind the line. Boozer is wide open in the corner, because Jeff Foster is protecting the basket. Question #2: What is Boozer's purpose in this play? It can't possibly be for him to take a 3, right? He should be around the basket for rebounding purposes. If he was there right now, Deng and Boozer would basically have a 2-on-1 against Jeff Foster. Question #3: What if Rasual Butler was in there instead of Boozer? Foster couldn't leave him wide open (although I assume Vogel might have changed the personnel up in that case) and Deng would have an open lane to the basket. If the plan was to take a 3 the whole time, why wouldn't you have another spot up shooter out there? Hell, even Bogans would have been a good call there. (OK, go ahead and roll it) Deng lets Granger push him to the corner, Boozer takes a terrible 3, game over.

And that's your Harris Bank Telestrator.

Derrick? Or TT?- 30%
Henry Abbott of TrueHoop wrote an interesting piece this week on the topic of rest, primarily as it pertains to the Bulls. As a shooter sometimes you have an off day where everything is just a little off, but in various directions. And sometimes you have an off day where everything is just a little short. That's when you know you're tired. And as every single Derrick Rose jump shotst clanged off the front of the rim, I couldn't help think of that article, and all the times this season Derrick was still in the fucking game when we were up 20 on a team like the Raptors with 2 minutes to go in the 4th quarter. He did it with Luol, too. You can't blame the ankle, this has been happening all series. Derrick is now 5-29 from behind the arc in the series, and I'm willing to bet at least 20 of those 24 misses hit the front of the rim first.

The Bench Mob (except for Fredo)- 20%
Or should we call Foster, McRoberts, Price, Jones, and Dunleavy the new Bench Mob? Our guys have been outscored 128-84. Take away Fredo's points and they only have 45. Taj has been bad on both ends. TBN hasn't been doing TBN things since game 1. CJ has been playing tentative and scared. Big Sexy has been...well he's been about the same. I wonder how much of it has to do with the reduced minutes (especially in TBN's case. He doesn't seem to be in the flow of the game at all anymore, and I haven't seen him sneak along the baseline more than once this whole series.) Either way, this is supposed to be a strength, so they really need to step it up if we're going to compete for an Eastern Conference title.

The Bigs- 10%
Somehow, when all was said and done, the Bulls outrebounded the Pacers by 1 this game? Does that surprise you? It surprised the hell out of me. Jeff Foster pulled down 7 offensive rebounds, some of them with Boozer just standing there watching. And it wasn't just Boozer, he made Kurt and Joakim look bad when they were supposed to be boxing him out as well. The Pacers big men are a class beneath our guys. I will take Noah and Boozer over Hibbert and Hansbrough any day, but we're not really attacking them and making them play good D. Maybe some of that was Derrick's ankle today, but on one of the many Luol drives to the basket in the 4th I yelled at the TV "Why the FUCK haven't we been doing this all game?!?!?" Attacking the basket will always be there, so let's not get away from it in Game 5.

That 3-on-1 with 1:13 left- 5%
I know Derrick wants to accelerate and finish like normal, but he clearly couldn't today. So please, Derrick, recognize that you have two trailers and dish it to one of them. And trailers (Booze and Fredo), maybe let him know you're there. A basket there would have cut it to 5 with over a minute left, and they probably wouldn't have had to foul at all.

Absolved-
Luol Deng- What the hell else was he supposed to do? Except maybe start attacking the basket like that sooner.
Joakim- 21 and 14 and about all our heart, as usual. The silver lining of this loss is that I expect Joakim and Derrick to be so pissed about it they leave absolutely no doubt in Game 5.
Bogans- Bogans did everything he was supposed to do. I would have maybe liked to see them rotate to him a little more, since nothing else was working.

Blame Game: Hawks-Wings

Whether the Wild give the Hawks a charity trip to the playoffs to lose to Vancouver or not, this loss was disgusting, but representative of the whole Hawks season. Completely outhustled, stupid turnovers leading to goals, and relying on flashes of talent to save them, coming up just short.

Q- 40%

Had this discussion with Conall the other day. The way they played the first period on Friday night should be the norm, not the exception. In a game where the season is on the line, there is no excuse for being 2nd to every loose puck, or give up untouched rebounds in front of the goal.

Also, Sharp was clearly not 100%, and was a little out of sync with Toews and Hossa the entire time. At some point, when we really needed a goal, I would have rather seen Kaner and Sharp switched.

Jake Dowell- 20%

Dowell was -3 along with Bickell and Pisani, but I'm putting this all on Dowell because those guys set him up with at least 3 good scoring chances that I saw, and he whiffed on all three. I know they weren't asking you guys to be great, just halfway competent, and you really weren't today.

Stahlberg- 10%

Stahl played well, but that lazy-ass pass that led to the first Red Wing goal would have been inexcusable at any point in the season.

Hammer- 10%

Botched clear led directly to the 4th goal. Again, unacceptable at any point in the season.

Defensive Lapses in general- 10%

I'm thinking especially of that rebound on Wing goal #2. Last year you could count on the Hawks clearing that.

Hossa- 5%

I know he assisted on goal #3, but for the most part I felt like Hoss was invisible against his former club. The first line was quiet in general, and while some of that I put on Q above, I also think Hossa could have skated with a little more urgency before the 3rd period.

Craw- 5%
Probably nothing he could have done about 1 and 4. 2 and 3 were a little cheaper than we've come to expect from Craw this year, though. I wonder if he gets Niemi'd in the offseason...

Oh well. Thank God the Bulls are the Bulls right now.

Also, Lovie Smith, that's how you eliminate a rival to keep them from biting you in the playoffs.

Blame Game: Bulls-Raptors

I have to make this quick so I can get some sleep, but an hour and a half later I'm still pretty pissed off about this loss. Call it a trap game, Noah not in sync with the rest of the team, or whatever other excuse you want to use, but the fact is the Bulls gave up 118 points in regulation to a team that averages 98 points. That's not what a team that thinks they're one of the best defensive clubs in the NBA does when they get their best defender back.

TT- 40%

Haven't had a real cause to rail against TT for awhile, but I was yelling at him almost the entire 4th quarter. Kurt Thomas played more than Joakim in the 4th quarter, and more than Taj in the game. And he was killing the Bulls help D. He just could not get to the rim to protect it fast enough when Barbosa and Derozan blew by Korver or Deng. The Bulls were down 92-91 at the 8:26 mark, a perfect time to put Joakim back in the game. But he sticks with Kurt, the Raptors get three easy buckets making it 98-91, then it occurs to TT to put his best defender into the game.

I was holding out hope that it wouldn't be true, but it appears Kurt is going to be the 3rd big man for the Bulls, sliding Taj to 4th and Asik out of the rotation entirely. Big Sexy played 22 mostly ineffective minutes tonight, Taj 16, Asik 20someodd seconds. If this is a problem against the Raptors, you can be damn sure it's going to be a problem against the Heat tomorrow night, and every night until TT starts playing his best players.

Also, TT is supposed to be good at Xs and Os, but it seemed like it was the Raptors getting easy layups off inbounds plays at the end of the game, and the Bulls the ones throwing up off-balance shots or throwing the ball away. Sorry, TT, you were outcoached tonight.

And please grow the stones to remove Boozer when he's not playing defense at the end of games (more on this in a moment.)

Carlos Boozer- 25%

You weren't asked to guard Tim Duncan, or Blake Griffin, or even freaking Andrea Bargnani. Amir fucking Johnson went 8-8 from the field on whatever the hell you were passing off as defense, not to mention all the times you watched the Raptors wings beat their men to the hole without even a glimmer of help D. That's how you drop 24 and are a -7.

John Paxson and Gar Foreman- 15%

This one's for JJ. The silver lining in this loss was the look on JJ's face after the game, hugging ex-teammates who were all clearly happy for the guy to be in a situation where he gets to be a major contributer. And I'm going to write this in bold and italics and give it it's own paragraph to get the point across:

HE COULD HAVE BEEN A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR FOR THE BULLS!!!

JJ wasn't Tyrus Thomas, a malcontent grumbling about playing time. He was always up on the bench with everyone else, even if it'd been 7 or 8 consecutive games with a DNP-CD. JJ has the athleticism, all he needs is the playing time and the right coaching to help him make better decisions on the court. There's no reason he couldn't have done that here. For how off Deng might have been on the defensive end tonight, the Bulls were way worse during the 6 minutes he was off, as the Raptors wings pretty much had their way with Kyle Korver. And I didn't like seeing JJ as one of those guys, although I'm rooting for him the rest of the way.

(And isn't the biggest knock on JJ his shot-selection? He took 4 shots in 26 minutes tonight. Seems like Toronto straightened him out in a hurry.)

Kyle Korver- 10%

When Kyle isn't hitting his shot, he shouldn't be on the court. The offense/defense substitution is fine when he's on, otherwise keep Ronnie on the court. Kyle had no chance against the quick Raptors wings and they ate him up all night. It would be different if Taj and Noah were behind him (I wish I had the minutes they played together in front of me, but I feel like it wasn't very much), but when Kurt and Booze are behind him, it's like an invitation to the basket.

Kurt Thomas- 5%

Not a lot left to say about Kurt. You know why he's here at this point.

Luol Deng- 5%

I hope it was just that you were saving your good defense for Lebron tomorrow night, Deng.

Absolved-

Derrick- I still love Derrick putting the team on his back offensively at the end of games. He shouldn't have to do that against the Raptors.
Ronnie Brewer- 4th leading scorer tonight, played with great energy like always. Big reason the 2nd unit went on a run at the beginning of the 2nd quarter.
Taj- I could probably give Taj a percent or two for his 2-8 from the field performance, but it looked like another night when he was getting hacked and the officials just ignored it.
Joakim- Again, maybe worth a percent or two for letting Bargnani drop so much, but he is a good offensive big man, and it was Noah's first game back, so I'll let him slide this time.

Better effort tomorrow tomorrow night, fellas. There are less and less cream puffs in the East by the day, and the 1 seed is within reach.

Blame Game- Hawks/Stars

OK, now I'm ready to hit the panic button.

Marlboro 72- 50%

How many times can our so-called star defensive duo be out of position or make an unforced turnover before we stop labeling them "stars"? Keith has been downright bad this year. His +/- the last three years: +30, +33, +21. This year? -2. And much of that is completely on his turnovers or falling asleep on D. Especially that 3rd goal, which should have been put in the first time, then they somehow got a 2nd chance to get back in position and make a play and still couldn't do it.

Marty Turco-20%

Sorry, Marty. This might be a little high, because you made some huge saves in the 3rd period on some plays that your defense let you down (see above). But the first goal was a little weak, and you might as well have stayed on the bench for the shootout.

JT- 15%

This is more of a general indictment of Toews than just last night. Sorry I'm bringing everything back to basketball, but there are a lot of similarities between the Hawks and the Utah Jazz right now. I believe it was Conall that was telling me a story about how Q wanted JT to practice shootout plays, and the captain refused. A team follows it's leader, and if the leader isn't on board, no one will be. Maybe you don't need to practice those shots JT, but after Sharpie's pathetic little effort, don't you think maybe your team needs to? Similarly, if Deron Williams had been playing hard for Jerry Sloan all year, he'd still be the coach right now. JT, leadership starts with you.

Bickell- 5%

Bickell is accepting this 5% on behalf of a team that got outhit 39-16 last night. I know the Hawks are not the most physical team out there, but that number is indicative of a team that wants it more. And at this point in the season, if they have any desire at all to make the playoffs, no one should want it more than the Hawks.

Sharpie- 5%

Jeez, I could have done better on that last shootout attempt, and I can barely skate, Sharp. We need every point we can get right now, so work on shootout attempts, please.

Bolland- 5%

I had an extra 5%, so...want to win some faceoffs at some point, Bolland? That might help.

Absolved-

Patrick Kane- Could have been better in the 2nd and 3rd, but his first period is the only reason we got a point out of this one.

Pisani, Johnson, Stahlberg- All got injured before they could do anything wrong, and that's the only reason they're down here.

Blame Game- Bears/Packers

I wasn't going to do a blame game post after this one, for a few different reasons. One, we've done surprisingly little with the Bears all year, and it kinda seems unfair for one of the first posts dedicated to them be ripping them apart for their performance in a game they were supposed to be nowhere near this year. And at halftime it looked like we were just going to be destroyed by the better team, and there really wouldn't be anything to do except tip your hats to the Packers and root like hell for the AFC in two weeks. However, considering how the Packers tried like hell to give the game to the Bears, and they didn't take it for a few glaringly obvious, stupid, bitch-ass reasons.

Lovie Smith (and Mike Martz)- 45%

Sam would like me to mention deferring the ball until the second half, which allowed a red hot QB to come out and give the Packers all the momentum, but I say it was the right call at the time, the D has set the tone for the Bears all year, and we didn't know they'd come out that badly. Here are the decisions I would like to place square at Lovie's feet.

1. Not attempting the 49 yard field goal in the first half and electing to punt. This gained the Bears a whopping 11 yards which the Packers gained back on the first play. Robbie can make a 49 yard field goal, and it would have been really nice if the Bears had been going for the win instead of the tie on that last drive.

2. Playing Todd Collins over Caleb Hanie in the first place. We saw the Todd Collins show against the Panthers. He sucks. He didn't come close to making a good throw on the two series he was in, and on one of those (just after Urlacher's interception) he had excellent field position and momentum. Maybe if Hanie is in on either of those drives we have another TD.

3. The timeout. What a stupid timeout. I don't care if the play clock is winding down, in a close game in the last two minutes, DO NOT CALL TIMEOUT WHEN THE CLOCK IS ALREADY STOPPED. Not to mention the play call after the timeout, which is probably Martz's fault, but still, this was just dumb.

Jay Cutler- 35%

Now I was at the game, so I don't know what was said on TV, but when Cutler didn't come out for that first drive, there was a lot of confusion about what happened, since no one saw any sort of play that would have resulted in an injury. A fan around us with a radio (who we'll get to in a minute) relayed Joniak's info that it was a knee injury, but we were skeptical. When I got back to a computer, I saw this article of NFL players questioning Cutler's toughness. It's one thing for fans that don't know what it's really like to play football, but these are people that DO know, and they are calling Cutler out. Maybe the Rick Reilly article was right, Cutler just is kind of a crappy human being with no heart. I'm going to need more convincing that Cutler didn't punk out in the 2nd half of this game.

Also, he sucked in the first half before he was hurt, too.

Tim Jennings- 10%

Hard to fault the defense for much with the way they came out in the 2nd half, but until the Bears started to get some pressure on Rodgers, he pretty much had his way with Jennings. And in the 2nd half Jennings had to kind of resort to holding people to compensate, which he got away with a few times. Either way, we need an upgrade at this position.

O-Line- 5%

This wasn't their worst performance, but it wasn't their best either, and they had some costly missed blocks at some bad moments (Jamarcus Webb and Chris Williams being the main offenders.) Hopefully Jerry Angelo recognizes this a problem for once and does something about it this offseason.

Brad Maynard- 2%

Brad is usually solid, but that 24 yard punt in the 4th quarter really screwed up our field position at the end there. Sorry, Brad, the nature of being a punter is fuck up once and everyone remembers it.

Lance Briggs- 2%

Again, tough to kill a defender after the 2nd half, but his overeagerness to make a big play in the 1st half led to some big James Starks runs. Maybe if he stays at home it's only 7-0 at halftime.

The fans in front of us-1%

They left before the 4th and 1, that Taylor converted, to beat traffic. This is completely unacceptable, and bad karma.

Absolved-

Caleb Hanie- But let's not go nuts, the throws Hanie did convert were wobbly and inaccurate. He showed a lot of poise, yes, but he held on to the ball too long and had a lot of trouble with his reads (like on the pick-6). He's not an NFL caliber starter. He's just better than Todd fucking Collins is.

Charles Tillman- MVP today. I think they converted two passes on Tillman, and he pretty much had whoever he was covering locked down the whole 2nd half.

Brian Urlacher- Obviously, came up with some huge plays. Got beat a few times on crossing routes, and Starks broke his ankles on one play, but overall Urlacher was solid.

Matt Forte/Chester Taylor- Wish they would have realized while Cutler was still in the game to give it to their best weapons, instead of trying to force the ball downfield to Devin every time.

Blame Game: Bulls v. Bobcats

As Tristan wasn't at home tonight, I thought I might give my take on the Bulls collapse tonight. I find it helpful when he breaks down a Bulls win or loss by who he thinks is responsible, although I think tonight's game involves a little less blame than some of the recent losses. Truly, Derrick played as well as we have come to expect of him, and I think I can say with relative confidence if he had a mere 1 or 2 additional seconds on the game clock on the last possession of the game, he might have brought home another win. You could see how much he wanted to hit that last shot, and I felt for him when he missed. Every single time I am rooting for Derrick so much to be his best, to hit the amazing shot or make the sick move, because I want the rest of the national media to recognize what we all know: he is the most valuable player on any team right now in the NBA. Period. He makes his teammates better, and when they don't step up, he puts the burden on his shoulders and delivers almost every time. Look at any other team and there isn't a single other player who contributes so greatly to the efficiency of his team and who also has that wow factor. Derrick is the whole package, and I don't think it's complete Chicago bias to think he should at least be in the discussion of MVP players. But I digress.

Though I know I am no replacement for my husband's keen ability to dissect a game, I think I've been with him enough years to have picked up a thing or two about how these things break down. So here goes…

Loul Deng, Keith Bogans and Kurt Thomas - 40%

Lou looked sloppy all night, turned over a couple nice passes from Derrick in the fourth quarter which were very costly, and he went 2-for-11 from the field. Bogans was unremarkable. He hit one nice open three but otherwise had very little impact. I still can't understand why Ronnie Brewer is not starting in his place. Kurt Thomas continues to be slow on help defense, and only put up 6 points with 2-4 on free throws. If you want to have a veteran on your team, he should at least be good at free throws right? Now I'm all for Bogans and Thomas getting some minutes later in the game, but neither of them should be starting. And tonight, I give the other starters (with Taj and Derrick being obvious exceptions) a huge part of this burden. The three of them combined for 19 points, and that is simply unacceptable from starters.

C.J. Watson - 10%

Yes he forced a turnover with 10 seconds left and had a big 3 to keep the Bulls in it, but when he came in to relieve Derrick in the second quarter he completely floundered. His defense is his best quality and he played hard, but he had some ugly turnovers and went a pretty meager 1-for-4 from the field. He also looked a little timid, a little hesitant to put it into a higher gear. I realize that stepping into Derrick's shoes, even for 10 minutes a game, is a huge task. You don't have to be as good as him, but you have to keep the floor under control, and tonight he just didn't have that point guard composure.

Fatigue - 15%

Without making excuses since the Bobcats should be beatable for us, but the Bulls have played 4 games in the last 5 days, including that game on Saturday against the Heat, of which Derrick played 42 minutes. They looked really tired the second half of the game, and I think the fact that it was a relatively low scoring game (82 points for the Bulls tonight, they're season average is 98.6) points to some of their exhaustion.

T.T. - 15%

Three weeks ago I never thought I would have said this, but T.T. actually overused Taj tonight. While this season he has tended to overuse Kurt Thomas and underuse Taj, tonight was all Taj all the time. And he played great; in 46:40, he had 9 rebounds, 6 blocks and 9 points. In other words, he was a beast. But at the tail end of a long stretch of games, why wouldn't he spread the minutes a little more amongst the bench players? Asik played 3 minutes, Thomas played 34 minutes. Is Thomas' play really that indispensable that T.T. isn't willing to give Asik, who did have 2 rebounds in his meager 3 minutes, a chance to show what he's worth? Especially against a team like the Bobcats. Yes, they have beat us twice now, but they are a beatable team and T.T. shouldn't be afraid to let his bench guys try to pick up the rest of the team a little bit and give them all a rest at the end of a long stretch of games. Plus, you know if he had brought in Scalabrine sometime in the fourth quarter, the Madhouse on Madison would have gotten appropriately rowdy.

To this conversation I just have to add, I don't know what James Johnson did to piss off T.T. but I'm pretty sure he either owes him a ton of money, slept with someone in the Thibedeau family or accidentally ran over T.T.'s puppy, because I just cannot understand not giving him any minutes ever. Seriously, what happened between you guys? Because last I checked James Johnson is, as Stacy would say, "a young buck," and I would think in Joakim's absence would be primetime to at least give him a little bit of time to at least earn his paycheck.

Turnovers and Rebounds - 18%

The Bulls had 13 turnovers and 9 team rebounds, while the Bobcats had only 7 turnovers and grabbed 15 team rebounds. Gerald Wallace had 16 personal rebounds and with the Bulls only shooting 39% from the field, those numbers simply won't cut it. However you slice it, the Bulls got out hustled by a team that wanted it more. Maybe Michael Jordan offers a bonus for every time his team bests the Bulls? Whether fatigued or not, this loss was ugly, especially because it was so close and still so winnable in spite of how poorly they played.

Ronnie Brewer - 2%

Ronnie had an amazing game tonight actually, with 12 points (did anyone else love his baseline dunk as much as I did?), 5 rebounds and 2 steals, but good God Ronnie, take that open layup! At the end of the game, you need to know what to do with the ball when it gets in your hands, and a kick out to Lou when he's been off and you're hot and RIGHT UNDER THE BASKET makes no sense. Everything else from Ronnie tonight was pure gold, but that one hurt.

On a final note, we must give major props to D. Rose and Taj Gibson for putting in such a great effort tonight. Both of them came to play, as they always do, and I hope that eventually T.T. will find a starting lineup that includes Gibson, Noah, Boozer, and Rose, maybe with Brewer thrown in for good measure (this will never happen because I know Lou won't lose that starting spot any time soon, but a girl can dream). I love watching Derrick play basketball, and even though he missed that last shot, he's the only one I want taking it at the end of a game, every game, every time.

Blame Game: Bulls-Nets

The Bulls are now 18-2 against teams below .500. Let's get right to this. Can you guess where I'm going to start?

TT- 60%
It bothers me to no end that TT is going to get credit for leaving his bench in for the end of this game. "What a savvy move, leaving Asik and Watson in the game at the end" and whatnot. Allow me to go all-caps Drew Magary style and make this simple:

THERE WOULD BE NO NEED FOR THE BULLS TO COME BACK AGAINST A TEAM LIKE THE NETS IF BOGANS AND THOMAS WEREN'T SUCKING IT UP FOR A COMBINED 39 MINUTES!

What does Taj Gibson need to do to get in the starting lineup? Kurt Thomas played 25 minutes of -13 ball tonight. Taj had 16 and 14 yesterday, not to mention much better help defense. Bogans managed an impressive -14 in 14 minutes. And that's mainly because he played some incredibly shitty defense, both on the ball and on rotations. Ronnie Brewer is better in every aspect of the game at this point. I feel like TT insists on playing Bogans entirely to not admit he made a mistake.

Two more beefs with TT tonight: Lu played 9 and half unnecessary minutes last night, then played 43 minutes tonight. I wonder why he might have missed 2 clutch free throws at the end of the game?

And putting Kurt back in the game for the last 11 seconds directly led to Sasha's layup. I've watched the play a dozen times. Kurt is caught napping on Lopez, and once Sasha set's the backpick, he's too slow to recover. CJ makes a great defensive play, but Kurt is just getting back to where he's supposed to be, making Sasha wide open.

Derrick Rose- 25%

I hate to do this, but Derrick was -14. I don't want to hold the 3 good starters too accountable for their +/-, since it's very affected by playing 3-on-5 all the time, but he wasn't great tonight. And if you're going to take a game winning 3, Derrick, take it the first time in rhythm, or pass it to someone set. We could have gotten a much better look there, which is partially TT's fault for being out of freaking timeouts again...

Kurt Thomas-10%

Stop being so slow.

Our inability to hit clutch free throws- 5%

There were many more problems than those last two free throws, but this problem does seem to keep coming back to bite us in the ass at inopportune times.

Absolved-

CJ Watson, Omer Asik, Kyle Korver, Taj Gibson.

Maybe if you all played more, this game wouldn't have been close. Alas.

The Blame Game: Bulls-Clippers

So when I said before that I wasn't too worried about not having Noah for a few months, I was working off the assumption that we'd have Taj in his place. No Taj or Noah means, unfortunately, we are not very good defensively inside, and the Clippers took advantage of that (despite Baron Davis' best efforts.) However, that doesn't mean we could have won this game, but for...

Kurt Thomas/TT for playing Kurt Thomas 16 minutes, and the clutch minutes in the 4th)- 45%

Yes, Kurt Thomas did some good things. He set a few solid screens, drew a nice charge on Blake Griffin, got another foul on a pump fake under the basket. But I thought we got Kurt Thomas to play defense and get rebounds. 3 rebounds in 16 minutes is guard numbers, and it wasn't like it was Blake Griffin beasting him, which would be understandable. There was a key play in the 4th where Eric Gordon got position on Thomas and put the ball back up on him.

Defensively it wasn't much better. He played 6 feet off Griffin out of necessity, but still wasn't quick enough to help stop Baron Davis on the drive. The on-ball defense wasn't much better. My question for TT is, if Kurt isn't going to do anything on the defensive end, why not play Scalabrine and at least open the post up for Boozer? Or go small with James Johnson and push the pace? (OK, Griffin probably would have made the Bulls pay for putting JJ or Luol on him, but still, it would have been better than what happened.)

TT's ability to manage the clock/timeouts- 20%
30 seconds left, down 2. If you don't foul, they can use the entire shot clock get a shot up at the end, by the time you have the rebound, you need to go down the floor for a final shot in 4 or 5 seconds. And that's assuming they don't make the shot or get an offensive rebound, which both basically end the game. If you foul, worst case you're down 4, but have the ball with 27-28 seconds, and can look for a 3 or and-1 to try to make it a 1 possession game next time you foul.

Of course, if you have a timeout, you can count on getting a rebound and calling a timeout, moving the ball up to halfcourt and drawing up a play. But you don't have timeouts left at the end of the game when you use them all with 2-4 minutes left to draw up fadeaway 3s for a guy that's 1-4 and hasn't shot since the 2nd quarter. For the love of god, save timeouts for the end of the game, TT.

Omer Asik-10%
We also aren't going to survive without Noah if Asik doesn't play better than that. 3 points, 6 rebounds won't cut it in 22 minutes. Come on, Asik, at least play well enough to make yourself a decent trade chip.

Kyle Korver- 10%
Hit open shots, Korver. That's pretty much your only job.

CJ Watson- 5%
I need to stop doing this, but I analyzed CJ's plus/minus in an email instead of on the blog this week. I can't find a website with CJ's +/- broken down by game, but I bet there's a high correlation between the Bulls winning "CJ time" (the time Derrick's out and CJ is in at the point) and winning the game. CJ was -11 tonight.

Keith Bogans- 5%
Asik's line was bad, but Bogans' was worse. 0 points, 1 rebound in 14 minutes. And again, I didn't see the defense making up for it. But there somehow aren't any minutes for JJ...

The "wait-for-Derrick-to-bail-us-out" mentality- 5%
Something you notice about great teams: they aren't afraid to have role players take key shots (Robert Horry, Derek Fisher, etc.) The Bulls still sometimes pull open shots down to pass back to Derrick (Boozer does this at about the 2 minute mark, then Derrick misses a tough running shot with his left. Boozer had an open 12-footer he'd been hitting all game.)

Absolved:

Derrick Rose- Would have been nice to have that 2nd free throw, but Derrick shouldn't have to bail out the Bulls every time they try to blow one at the end.
Luol Deng- Missed some key shots, but again, good offense and solid defense (although Ryan Gomes/Rasual Bulter is not the toughest matchup for Deng this year.)
Carlos Boozer- 25 on 12-20 from the field. Maybe we should have run some plays for him in the 4th quarter?
Baron Davis- Some of those plays at the end of the game were ridiculous. Donald Sterling is a despicable human being, but if I was Davis' owner I would heckle him, too.

Vent in the comments. And remember the Bulls-Wizards liveblog is Wednesday night.

The Blame Game: Bulls-Magic

What a disappointment. First Sam and I get there an hour early, but are still too late for the Joakim Noah bobblehead giveaway, then the Bulls come out and gave easily their worst effort of the year so far. Let's see where the blame lies, shall we?

Joakim Noah- 50%

Joakim's bobblehead ended up with as many rebounds as he did. This is the first time Joakim's ever ended up without a board when he's played more than 7 minutes (he played 26). The Magic played a very similar style of offense as they did in the 2009 playoffs, where they basically dumped it in to Dwight Howard, and if the double team came, they kicked it out to the shooters. It worked against Cleveland, who kept falling for the trap and leaving Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu open. It didn't against the Lakers, who left Pau Gasol alone on Howard and made him try to beat them. He couldn't. Tonight, unfortunately, Joakim was no Gasol. Even though Howard didn't put up a very impressive line (5-12 for 13 points and 12 boards), it was obvious the Bulls were afraid of Howard being left alone with Noah, which led to the Magic being 10-21 from beyond the arc (a few of those were contested Jameer Nelson 3s, but most were the result of late rotation on the collapse.) I expect more from Noah at this point. If you're going to be the heart and soul of the team, when you don't bring it, almost nobody is bringing it.

Anyone assigned to guard Vince Carter- 25%
Mainly Keith Bogans and Kyle Korver, a little Ronnie Brewer, although I think Brewer was mainly matched up with Pietrus or Richardson. Vince Carter looked like the 2000 version tonight, which he really shouldn't against a good defensive team. Some of those baskets I blame on Noah (the 2nd and 3rd buckets of the game for the Magic were both easy put backs on boards in front of Noah, I believe), but Carter was also getting to the rim whenever he wanted. The 2010 version of Vinsanity shouldn't be able to do that, even against Kyle Korver.

TT- 10%
Speaking of which, why was Korver spending so much time guarding Vince? He didn't have his shot tonight (2-5 from the field, -25 on the night) yet he played the second most minutes behind Derrick. Couldn't JJ have gotten some minutes in the first half? He came in and brought some great energy with a couple of nice blocks and hustle plays at the end of the 3rd quarter, once the game was already decided. (Being JJ, he then undermined himself with a dumb 3, dumb foul, and a missed dunk from too far away when he could have just layed it up, but he still at least looked like he came to play tonight.)

Whoever decided Carlos Boozer was ready to play- 10%
God, I hope it's just that Boozer isn't 100% yet, and that's not what we're paying 14.4 mil a year for. Too slow on the defensive rotations, and he didn't have any type of post moves, not on Howard, Lewis or even Brandon Bass (who, by the way, was a beast tonight). All Boozer's points came on jump shots, which while nice, doesn't really give him a reason to get minutes over Taj Gibson, especially since Taj is a much better defender. If Carlos is 100%...we might have signed the wrong Jazz power forward.

Derrick Rose- 5%
Two reasons for Derrick being here
1. Jameer Nelson abused him at the defensive end. I know Derrick's defense isn't his strong suit, but if we do happen to run into the Magic in the playoffs, they could exploit that matchup all day.
2. The tried-and-true method to beat the Magic is get Dwight Howard in foul trouble. But I can think of very few times Derrick went to the rim and tried to draw a foul on Howard. That should have been our offense for most of the first half, but I don't think Dwight even picked up a foul until the very end of the half.

Absolved-
Taj Gibson- The Bulls were much better defensively when Taj was on the court. He was a -11, but when you by 29, everyone's +/- is ugly. I wish there was a +/- for rebounding, because I bet Taj was the only Bull anywhere near the positives there.
Luol Deng- Lu was 2-8 from the field, and late on a few rotations to get back to Lewis, but I give him credit for at least shedding the soft label for one night and being the only player to attack the basket.
JJ- Like I said above, the complexion of the game changed a lot for the better when JJ came in, then he showed why he didn't play until garbage time with some bonehead plays. I have high hopes for JJ, though, as soon as he gets the mental mistakes out of his system, we could have even more depth on the wing, plus another guy that can guard a Lewis-type big wing.

Let's put this one behind us and make a statement against the other behemoth in the East right now, Boston on Friday night.