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.