Credit Where Credit is Due- Bulls/Heat

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.