I have my biases, I'll admit. But I like to think that when my favorite players have bad games and people I've been absolutely killing have good games, I can give them credit. Tonight, Kurt Thomas was better than Taj Gibson, Keith Bogans was worth the minutes he played, and maybe most impressively, TT saved timeouts for when he really needed them. Let's break it down:
Ronnie Brewer- 28%
It won't show up in the stat line, just 9 points and a +8, but when the Bulls needed someone to cool DWade off, Ronnie did the job perfectly. He made Wade give the ball up on the 2nd to last possession and altered Wade's shot on the last possession. I don't know if we win this game without Ronnie stepping up in the last minute.
Derrick Rose- 25%
Of course, it helped that Derrick was MVP Derrick in the 2nd half. There's no way Mario Chalmers or Carlos Arroyo should be even close to being able to guard Derrick, but he still gets credit for having 4 or 5 "wow" moments.
Kurt Thomas- 15%
Kurt is good at another thing that I haven't given him enough credit for: flopping. Seriously, Kurt gets at least 2 or 3 calls a game via just falling down or making a little noise off of any contact. He didn't get it every time he tried tonight, but sometimes it helps in little ways, to kill off momentum or get opposing bigs in foul trouble. Yes, Kurt was slow on some rotations again tonight, but he made up for it with his physical presence and surprisingly competent offense.
Keith Bogans- 15%
The stats say Bogans only played 11 minutes, which I think is wrong because he played at least the first 6 minutes of the game and I thought the first 8 minutes of the 3rd, which were the 2 best stretches of the game, which is why Bogans was +15. He played decent defense and knocked down a couple open 3s, and if he can continue to do that, then I don't have a problem with him playing 12-15 minutes a game.
CJ Watson- 10%
CJ was nothing special tonight, but he was solid on D, hit a couple 3s, didn't turn the ball over, and brought home a +5. Can't ask for much more than that.
TT- 5%
TT in the credit side? I love two things about tonight: TT saving timeouts for a close game at the end, and recognizing that Derrick needed to play the entire 2nd half in order to win, and altering his standard rotation. Thank you TT, you will undoubtedly be killed here in the future, but tonight I'm proud of you.
Kyle Korver- 2%
Just for the clutch 3. He was 0-3 from beyond the arc before that and a part of that brutal end of the 2nd where they went from up 13 to down 5, which is why he was -13 at the end of the night. But nice shot, Korver.
No Credit-
Luol Deng- Just when I was ready to fully trust Lu again, he pulled this stinkbomb. 5-14 with 3 turnovers, awful defense, and I made as many "WTF, Deng?" comments as "Wow, Derrick" comments in the liveblog tonight. At least these have become the exception instead of the rule this season.
Carlos Boozer- Disappeared against the not great interior defense of the Heat. We're not beating the LBJ led-Heat team if Boozer doesn't play much better than he did tonight.
Taj Gibson- Taj did play decent help defense and forced a few turnovers, but he wasn't good offensively, and needs to learn the art of not getting called for every little thing. This isn't entirely his fault, for some reason the refs think everything Taj does is a foul, but it doesn't always help when he swings his arms wildly instead of going straight up.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Bulls-Heat Liveblog (maybe Hawks-Preds and Falcons-Packers, too)
Good evening for doing nothing but sitting on the couch and watching sports. Sounds like a plan to me. Will Lebron play and make it interesting? Or will he punk out and it's basically the DWade show? Taj Gibson was a +17 last night, does that mean he'll pick up a DNP-CD today?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
I Can't Take Any More of This Shit
Watching Bulls games has made visibly and palpably angry lately. Angrier than I ever was in the early 00s Tim Floyd wasteland, angrier than the BG/Luol baby Bulls, even angrier than I ever was when VDN was failing to organize chaos.
The Tim Floyd era Bulls lost because they were supposed to lose. Their had all of 1 good player (Elton Brand) and tried to pass Rusty La fucking Rue off as a legitimate NBA point guard.
The Baby Bulls sometimes lost because BG would shoot them out of games, but they really didn't have many better options. Live by BG's fallaway threes, die by BG's fallaway threes.
And I'll say this for VDN. He may not have had any idea how to relate to players, diagram plays, or teach young players what they were supposed to be doing, but I always felt like the right players were on the court.
This Bulls team is more talented and deeper than any team in the East besides the Heat and Celtics (maybe you can make a case for the Magic.) They should not have trouble with the Nets and Bobcats of the world. But they frequently do because minutes are being eaten up by the Bulls 11th and 12th best players on the roster, who you can visibly see not playing as well as their counterparts.
Or am I crazy? Because why is no one else talking about this? Bogans, yes, everyone has been piling on TT about Bogans for the better part of the last few months. But I'm not here to talk about Bogans, he hasn't played more than 18 minutes since November.
But Kurt Thomas...What. The. Fuck. The only game since Taj's concussion Kurt hasn't played more than 20 minutes in was the Toronto game, where Taj put up 16 points and 14 rebounds. The next fucking night Taj only played 11 minutes to Kurt's 27, and I've already gone over how that cost us the game.
It happened again tonight. With about 6:45 left and the Bulls up 4, the Bobcats rotate the ball to Boris Diaw up top. Diaw drives to the hole, Kurt slides in front of him and barely offers any resistance at all as Diaw puts in the layup. The next possession for the Bobcats DJ Augustin drives baseline, Kurt Thomas comes over so late he practically sets a pick on CJ, who's forced to foul.
The problem is that in between those two plays Carlos Boozer blows a dunk, and that will look a lot better (or worse) on Sportscenter.
Later in the 4th Augustin drives, Kurt is late (as usual) and Augustin dishes to Tyrus for the layup. The Bulls were up 1 before that and never lead again. Kurt played 35 minutes of -4 ball, Taj played 18 minutes of +3. This is, and I hate using this word, but there's no other way to describe it: incredibly retarded. I can understand playing a young guy over a veteran to help him come along (although none of the last 3 Bulls coaches have understood that,) but I don't get why you would do the opposite. Taj is better than Kurt offensively. Taj is better than Kurt defensively. Taj is younger and a much bigger part of the Bulls plans going forward, even if it's as a trade chip. There is no single fucking logical explanation as to why Kurt should be getting double the minutes that Taj does, other than something to do with TT's fucking ego.
This makes at least 3 games I feel confident saying that if Kurt and Taj's minutes were flip-flopped, we would have won. And there's just no excuse for it. That's why I'm so mad right now. TT is not a stupid man, he's just stubborn, and that makes it 10 times worse. Blogabull, BytheHorns...help me out here. I can't be the only person outraged by this.
Help us, Joakim Noah. You're our only hope.
(I swear to God, though, if Kurt is still getting more minutes than Taj when Noah comes back...)
The Tim Floyd era Bulls lost because they were supposed to lose. Their had all of 1 good player (Elton Brand) and tried to pass Rusty La fucking Rue off as a legitimate NBA point guard.
The Baby Bulls sometimes lost because BG would shoot them out of games, but they really didn't have many better options. Live by BG's fallaway threes, die by BG's fallaway threes.
And I'll say this for VDN. He may not have had any idea how to relate to players, diagram plays, or teach young players what they were supposed to be doing, but I always felt like the right players were on the court.
This Bulls team is more talented and deeper than any team in the East besides the Heat and Celtics (maybe you can make a case for the Magic.) They should not have trouble with the Nets and Bobcats of the world. But they frequently do because minutes are being eaten up by the Bulls 11th and 12th best players on the roster, who you can visibly see not playing as well as their counterparts.
Or am I crazy? Because why is no one else talking about this? Bogans, yes, everyone has been piling on TT about Bogans for the better part of the last few months. But I'm not here to talk about Bogans, he hasn't played more than 18 minutes since November.
But Kurt Thomas...What. The. Fuck. The only game since Taj's concussion Kurt hasn't played more than 20 minutes in was the Toronto game, where Taj put up 16 points and 14 rebounds. The next fucking night Taj only played 11 minutes to Kurt's 27, and I've already gone over how that cost us the game.
It happened again tonight. With about 6:45 left and the Bulls up 4, the Bobcats rotate the ball to Boris Diaw up top. Diaw drives to the hole, Kurt slides in front of him and barely offers any resistance at all as Diaw puts in the layup. The next possession for the Bobcats DJ Augustin drives baseline, Kurt Thomas comes over so late he practically sets a pick on CJ, who's forced to foul.
The problem is that in between those two plays Carlos Boozer blows a dunk, and that will look a lot better (or worse) on Sportscenter.
Later in the 4th Augustin drives, Kurt is late (as usual) and Augustin dishes to Tyrus for the layup. The Bulls were up 1 before that and never lead again. Kurt played 35 minutes of -4 ball, Taj played 18 minutes of +3. This is, and I hate using this word, but there's no other way to describe it: incredibly retarded. I can understand playing a young guy over a veteran to help him come along (although none of the last 3 Bulls coaches have understood that,) but I don't get why you would do the opposite. Taj is better than Kurt offensively. Taj is better than Kurt defensively. Taj is younger and a much bigger part of the Bulls plans going forward, even if it's as a trade chip. There is no single fucking logical explanation as to why Kurt should be getting double the minutes that Taj does, other than something to do with TT's fucking ego.
This makes at least 3 games I feel confident saying that if Kurt and Taj's minutes were flip-flopped, we would have won. And there's just no excuse for it. That's why I'm so mad right now. TT is not a stupid man, he's just stubborn, and that makes it 10 times worse. Blogabull, BytheHorns...help me out here. I can't be the only person outraged by this.
Help us, Joakim Noah. You're our only hope.
(I swear to God, though, if Kurt is still getting more minutes than Taj when Noah comes back...)
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Chitown Sports NFL Pick Challenge Update
So 3 out of the underdogs win this weekend...just not the one I chose. Crap.
The good news is the Bears get the Seahawks, who are still a game below .500 on the year. The bad news is the Seahawks looked the best out of the 4 NFC teams that played this weekend, and have already beaten us once this year. Great. Although I am starting to think a Bears-Packers NFC Championship Game on my birthday is destined to happen.
Current Standings:
Julia 3
Will 2
Graham 2
Asher 2
Katz 2
GDubbs 1
BJ 1
Louis 1
Neal 1
Tristan 0
Sam 0
My picks for this weekend, which you should obviously pick the opposite of.
Steelers over Ravens (The Ravens might keep winning just to spite me, but I think the Steelers have a little too much firepower for them)
Packers over Falcons (I know I'm going against my own Super Bowl pick here, but I really feel like Bears-Packers is going to happen.)
Bears over Seahawks (The Bears are playing much better than they did when they lost earlier in the season. And I can't believe the Bears D can play nearly as bad as the Saints D did yesterday. Against Tom Brady, maybe, but not against Hasselbeck.)
Patriots over Jets (Belichick doesn't lose games like this.)
Make your picks before the first game Saturday to be eligible for 2nd round points. If you picked the next two rounds in advance, you can go back and change them if you want, but your Super Bowl pick is locked in. And get ready for my awesome comeback.
The good news is the Bears get the Seahawks, who are still a game below .500 on the year. The bad news is the Seahawks looked the best out of the 4 NFC teams that played this weekend, and have already beaten us once this year. Great. Although I am starting to think a Bears-Packers NFC Championship Game on my birthday is destined to happen.
Current Standings:
Julia 3
Will 2
Graham 2
Asher 2
Katz 2
GDubbs 1
BJ 1
Louis 1
Neal 1
Tristan 0
Sam 0
My picks for this weekend, which you should obviously pick the opposite of.
Steelers over Ravens (The Ravens might keep winning just to spite me, but I think the Steelers have a little too much firepower for them)
Packers over Falcons (I know I'm going against my own Super Bowl pick here, but I really feel like Bears-Packers is going to happen.)
Bears over Seahawks (The Bears are playing much better than they did when they lost earlier in the season. And I can't believe the Bears D can play nearly as bad as the Saints D did yesterday. Against Tom Brady, maybe, but not against Hasselbeck.)
Patriots over Jets (Belichick doesn't lose games like this.)
Make your picks before the first game Saturday to be eligible for 2nd round points. If you picked the next two rounds in advance, you can go back and change them if you want, but your Super Bowl pick is locked in. And get ready for my awesome comeback.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Chi-Town Sports Football Picks Challenge
Here be the rules:
Make your Super Bowl pick in the comments below. 5 points for getting the winner right, 3 points for getting the loser right (even if you picked them to win, so if I pick Saints over Ravens, and the Saints lose to the Colts, I get 3 points.) 2 point bonus if you get both teams correct. In addition, pick each game of each weekend (no spread, just straight up winner). You get one point for each game you get correct. You don't have to be an oracle for this one, you can wait until after you know the matchups to make a pick. For example, here's mine:
Super Bowl Pick: Patriots over Falcons (sorry to pick the chalk, picking any other team just didn't sit right.)
This weekend:
Colts over Jets (If Cutler can pick apart the Jets for 38, Manning should be good for 70, easy.)
Saints over Seahawks (Even if we were doing the spread, I would still take the Saints -10.5)
Chiefs over Ravens (Ravens are overrated.)
Eagles over Packers (I think Vick will put the Eagles on his back in this one.)
Make your picks before the first game starts at 3:30 tomorrow to be eligible.
Make your Super Bowl pick in the comments below. 5 points for getting the winner right, 3 points for getting the loser right (even if you picked them to win, so if I pick Saints over Ravens, and the Saints lose to the Colts, I get 3 points.) 2 point bonus if you get both teams correct. In addition, pick each game of each weekend (no spread, just straight up winner). You get one point for each game you get correct. You don't have to be an oracle for this one, you can wait until after you know the matchups to make a pick. For example, here's mine:
Super Bowl Pick: Patriots over Falcons (sorry to pick the chalk, picking any other team just didn't sit right.)
This weekend:
Colts over Jets (If Cutler can pick apart the Jets for 38, Manning should be good for 70, easy.)
Saints over Seahawks (Even if we were doing the spread, I would still take the Saints -10.5)
Chiefs over Ravens (Ravens are overrated.)
Eagles over Packers (I think Vick will put the Eagles on his back in this one.)
Make your picks before the first game starts at 3:30 tomorrow to be eligible.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
A Few Random Bulls Thoughts...
Still working on those last two posts I promised on the Hawks and Cubs, but right now I'm about to pass out, so it's not happening now. I do have a few random thoughts on the Bulls from tonight, however...
1. As of 5 minutes left in this game, with the Bulls up 24, there is somehow a Bull with a negative +/-. You have -1 guess as to who it is.
If you didn't say Kurt Thomas you're probably being a smart-ass. The Raptors started the game on a 11-5 run by running everything through Andrea Bargnani on the perimeter and forcing Kurt to move around. I know only a handful of teams have a center who can shoot 3s, but there are probably very few centers who couldn't take Thomas to the basket at this point. Which brings me to point #2.
2. Taj Gibson. 8-11 from the field. 16pts, 14 rebounds in 25 minutes. There's no reason Taj shouldn't be starting right now. I can't figure out TT's logic on this one other than a desire to have his best one-on-one post defender outside Noah on the court. But Taj is a very small step down from Kurt one-on-one in the post, and a huge step up as a help defender and on offense. With Kurt and Bogans starting, the Bulls are basically playing 3-on-5 on offense for the first 6 minutes of every half.
3. I love Ronnie Brewer and Kyle Korver playing together on the wing. I know it means either Lu has to play the 4 or be on the bench, but I think their strengths really complement each other.
4. Ethan and Asher's favorite whipping boys, CJ Watson and Omer Asik, both played pretty well tonight. I know the Raptors are one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA, but do either of you want to smack them back down?
5. JJ didn't play until 2:30 left in the game. I don't know what else to say about this.
6. I hate the crowd acting like Brian Scalabrine is a side act and not a legitimate NBA player. I feel like he's shown in the past few years that he's halfway useful, and has just been stuck playing in two of the deepest frontcourts in the league. Scal would be a useful, contributing big man on about half the teams in the NBA.
1. As of 5 minutes left in this game, with the Bulls up 24, there is somehow a Bull with a negative +/-. You have -1 guess as to who it is.
If you didn't say Kurt Thomas you're probably being a smart-ass. The Raptors started the game on a 11-5 run by running everything through Andrea Bargnani on the perimeter and forcing Kurt to move around. I know only a handful of teams have a center who can shoot 3s, but there are probably very few centers who couldn't take Thomas to the basket at this point. Which brings me to point #2.
2. Taj Gibson. 8-11 from the field. 16pts, 14 rebounds in 25 minutes. There's no reason Taj shouldn't be starting right now. I can't figure out TT's logic on this one other than a desire to have his best one-on-one post defender outside Noah on the court. But Taj is a very small step down from Kurt one-on-one in the post, and a huge step up as a help defender and on offense. With Kurt and Bogans starting, the Bulls are basically playing 3-on-5 on offense for the first 6 minutes of every half.
3. I love Ronnie Brewer and Kyle Korver playing together on the wing. I know it means either Lu has to play the 4 or be on the bench, but I think their strengths really complement each other.
4. Ethan and Asher's favorite whipping boys, CJ Watson and Omer Asik, both played pretty well tonight. I know the Raptors are one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA, but do either of you want to smack them back down?
5. JJ didn't play until 2:30 left in the game. I don't know what else to say about this.
6. I hate the crowd acting like Brian Scalabrine is a side act and not a legitimate NBA player. I feel like he's shown in the past few years that he's halfway useful, and has just been stuck playing in two of the deepest frontcourts in the league. Scal would be a useful, contributing big man on about half the teams in the NBA.
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