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.

Credit Where Credit is Due- Bulls/Nets Game 7

If the Bulls can play with that much heart, then the least I can do is come out of retirement and give them the appropriate amount of credit. 

Joakim 50%

I'd say one of the worst calls I've made as a Chicago sports fan was advocating the Bulls take Al Thornton over Jo in the 07 draft. God, I'm glad I was wrong about that one. I used to write a lot about advanced statistics vs. intangibles, especially in regards to their relevance to basketball discussions. I don't think it was any more evident than what was on display tonight, as Jo's heart, and the way it infected the team, was the difference in this game. 24 points, 14 boards, 6 blocks, and pretty much a big play whenever the Bulls needed it. The Bulls won because Jo was the best player on the floor, which he basically had to be after guaranteeing a win. But big-time players back statements like that up. And I'm proud to call Jo a big-time player. 

TT- 15%

The one thing I've never criticized about TT is his play-calling, and it was no more evident than tonight.  There was so much made about where the offense would come from with no Kirk or Lu, but the creative play-calling all game made up for that. Yes, there were some shaky possessions near the end, but the Bulls got at least 20-30 points by my rough estimate that were the direct result of a creative set play. 

The other thing TT did well in this game was something that completely goes against his instincts, and that was having faith in a rookie to play major minutes in an important game. I don't know if the Bulls win without the contributions the bench made in this one, which was the big difference between game 6 and tonight. Don't get me wrong, I still have a lot of reservations with what TT has done this year, probably too much for this post. But I'll say this: TT's style and intelligence just won a game 7 on the road. (Also, good call on switching JFB and Nate defensively

Boozer- 13%

It was definitely a weird feeling to be relieved when Boozer came back into the game into the 4th for Taj, but tonight was Boozer at his best. Going to the basket, creating shots, getting to the free throw line. There were still some bad rotations, but this reminded me of Boozer in the middle of the season, when he actually looked like a player worth...well maybe not 15 mil a year, but significantly closer than he had been since signing the contract.

Belinelli- 6%

This could probably be higher, what with the pretty efficient 24 points on 14 shots, and plenty of clutch free throws down the stretch. I have to dock him a little because he was off the court most of the 2nd quarter, which was the best the Bulls played all season. But again, great clutch shooting, Marco.

JFB- 5%

JFB could probably be higher, too. That certainly wasn't the best offensive game he's ever played, but he made Deron work much harder for his points once he switched onto him in the 2nd quarter, and did come up with a couple big baskets. I would still like to see Jimmy going to the basket a little more, but it's hard to hold it against him if he doesn't look quite as energetic now that he has to play all 48 minutes every night.

NateRob- 4%

I would love to put Nate higher, but it seemed like any time the Nets backcourt scored, it was on Nate. I love the way Nate plays, especially in games like Game 4 (obviously), but the defensive issue always rears it's ugly head at some point when Kirk is out.

Teague- 3%

The last time Teague played 10 or more minutes in a game was March 15th. Yet he gave the Bulls some huge minutes and a defensive improvement over Nate that they desperately needed. He still has all the same holes in his game, but you can't say he shrunk from the moment.

Daequan Cook- 2%

Speaking of stepping up big time, I'll take 3 points from Daequan Cook whenever the opportunity arises.

Joe Johnson- 2%

You could probably give Joe more credit for this one, too. If he even shoots 25% from the field, that might have gone differently. 2-14 is not what you want from a guy making 20 mil in a game 7, though.

No Credit- 

Taj

That was one of the worst games I've seen Taj play. I hope it's just that he was still feeling the effects of the flu, or the knee issue, but he just isn't affecting the game on the defensive end the way he has the past 2 years. The Bulls need the old Taj back to be a true contender again when Derrick returns.

Rip

Yeah, I know Rip didn't play. But I wonder if TT had realized that Rip was abjectly useless earlier in the season, the Bulls could have been the 3 seed, or possibly even 2 this year.

VladRad

Why would you shave your trademark scruff before a game 7? Lucky for you, Vlad, the Bulls overcame your bad karma, or else the blame game would have just been 100% VladRad.

Another Year, Another TT Rant

One thing I feel bad about, in terms of not writing very much this year, is not being able to acknowledge that Boozer isn't a complete waste of space this year. In fact, I don't mind seeing him in at the end of games this year, as his improved offensive game (both going to the basket more and hitting his turnaround fadeaway more consistently) at least makes up for the (less-frequent) defensive lapses. Sometimes it's infuriating, because he's still not worth $15 mil, but he might be playing just well enough not to get amnestied this offseason.

Taj has definitely suffered as a result. I don't feel like Taj is the type of guy to get paid and stop trying, so I feel like his regression is at least partially a result of less consistent playing time from last year. I fully expected Taj's minutes to go up from last year, but he's basically stayed the same, averaging 20.2 this year, after 20.4 last year. Considering there's one less viable big man in Chicago, that means all of Asik's minutes are being divvied up among Jo and Boozer, which might be why the Bulls are having such a hard time holding leads late in games this year.

Of course, maybe Asik should have gotten more credit for the 2nd unit defense last year. Taj hasn't looked like the player he was last year at all. In bits and pieces, sure, but overall he's making more mistakes defensively and letting up rebounds he never gave up last season.

But that's not why we're here. We're here because TT is somehow getting worse. He seems to have little sense of who to play and when, or how to build any sort of momentum. It's pretty common knowledge at this point that the Bulls haven't won more than 3 games in a row all season, and I'm looking straight at TT for this problem. His rotations seem to be made using the opposite of logic. Anyone remember JFB playing out of his mind against the Heat? Then he plays 10 minutes the next game against Cleveland. He played a season-low 6 minutes tonight in a game where it might have helped to have someone playing perimeter defense. Kirk Hinrich is useless about half the time, NateRob swings from helpful to a huge detriment in the span of seconds, but Marquis Teague can't get off the bench unless Kirk is in street clothes.

Let's take, for example, Marco's minutes tonight. Rip was on fire in the 3rd quarter. 5 of 6 from the field, and getting pretty much whatever he wanted. Then Marco comes in at the start of the 4th quarter and basically plays like the opposite of that. Useless on offense and defense, and couldn't even be counted on to dribble the ball competently (for the 2nd game in a row.) So does TT go back to Rip to try to continue the hot hand? Go to Jimmy to play some lockdown defense and shut down their scorers?

Nope. Not only does Marco play the whole 4th (going 1 for 7 from the field, and 2-4 from the line down the stretch,) TT decided to run the final two plays for him. They both failed, and only through Toronto incompetence did they escape to overtime. Finally at the end of overtime TT called the play he should have in the first place (Iso for Deng.)

TT's faith in players that aren't helping is infuriating. It's not Boozer so much anymore, but he still can't manage to get his 5 best players on the court at the same time. Even if that 5 is more fluid these days, he still can't figure out pieces to use that make sense at the same time. And every 3rd or 4th game the Bulls drop a winnable game to a team they should beat. They tried again tonight, but the Raptors were feeling generous. It's still frustrating to sit through, though.

Come back and save us, Derrick!

A Carlos Boozer Flowchart

As you can clearly see, I have very little time to blog these days. But every now and then, I find 10 minutes to make a flowchart about Carlos Boozer. Here it is below:

It's pretty self-explanatory, really.

Quick Halloween Thoughts (Bulls-Kings 10/31)

Sorry folks, no time for a full credit post. Going to have to keep it abridged tonight.

-My worst fears came true tonight with Taj. No contract reached because the Bulls lowballed him (4 years, 32 mil? DeMar DeRozen got 4 years 40 mil tonight.) Now the Bulls as an organization have a vested interest in Taj's numbers not getting too high. I'm not saying that's why he only saw 19 minutes tonight, but he changed the game defensively in those 19 minutes. I know Joakim and Boozer (!) both played well tonight, but if Nazr Mohammed is only going to play for 3 minutes, then there's 93 big man minutes available. I'd like to see those a little more spread out, for the good of all three of those guys long term. (Omer Asik played 33 minutes tonight for the Rockets. Just saying.)

(Just as I was getting ready to post this, this tweet came across my feed:

38 million over 4 years. He left a little on the table, in my opinion, but I'm ecstatic it got done.)
 

-I enjoyed seeing both Boozer and Joakim taking the ball to the basket tonight. The Kings aren't known for their post defense, so hopefully this keeps up when we play games against teams with decent defensive big men. We're going to need it as long as our best creator out of the backcourt is Nate Robinson.

-Speaking of NateRob...he's one of our five best defensive players now? Really? That's...foreboding.

-I really don't care that Marco Belinelli hit a three and got fouled on another. I want JFB playing those minutes. If Jimmy's going to be part of the rotation going forward, he needs to play more than 11 minutes a game. At least we'll have some semblance of perimeter D.

-There's been a lot of blogosphere backlash against Kirk Hinrich. And I understand why, he probably got a good deal more money from the Bulls than he would have got anywhere else, and they could have been smarter about fitting him in monetarily with the trade exception. But from a pure basketball standpoint, I think he's a good fit. He'll run the offense at least competently until Derrick comes back, and I think he'll be an upgrade for the 2nd unit once that happens.

-Speaking of Derrick...remember what happened last time Derrick played the Kings?

Sigh...I miss him so much...

2012-2013

Welcome back, everybody. Before we jump into the depressing sadness that is everything that happened since about 2:50 PM last April 28th, let me get to a few housekeeping type things:

-The goal right now is to move to a self-contained website. I don't have nearly the technical know-how to pull this off right now, but I'm hoping to teach myself over the course of the year, in what little free time I do have. But if anyone with the skill wants to collaborate...

-Speaking of, it's always nice to have more authors, so if you're reading this and want to contribute, just let me know.

-As should be quite obvious by now, I clearly only have the motivation to write about the Bulls. So if/when I move the site, I need a clever Bulls-related name. If anyone has any ideas, again, let me know.

Now on to thoughts on 2012-2013

-I still have no faith in Thibodeau. I think this year might be even worse, really, since he'll be even more reluctant to turn to the bench, the starters are going to play some ridiculous minutes. I wouldn't be surprised to see Deng's minutes somehow go up, along with Rip, Kirk until Derrick is back, and maybe even Joakim. This as we should be aware by now, is not a recipe for long-term success. I'll come into the season with an open mind, maybe TT will prove me wrong. But I doubt it.

-Even worse was the front office decisions. I know we couldn't have kept everyone, but by dipping into the luxury tax a little (which we could have easily afforded), we wouldn't have gone from having our greatest non-Derrick-related strength (the Bench Mob) turned into our biggest non-Boozer-related weakness. I love JFB, but it worries me that he's now our seventh best player (well, maybe 6th, Boozer), and it's a steep drop to number 8 (Nazr Mohammed? Or Nate Robinson?). I had no idea I'd miss JL3 this much already.

-Speaking of the front office: Pay Taj. 4 years, 40 mil. He is absolutely worth it. I know they can let it ride and match in restricted free agency, but then the Bulls once again have a vested interest in not seeing Taj putting up huge numbers this year. Which is absolutely moronic. The worst part is the number one argument that people keep making against Taj is that he hasn't shown he can keep his production up with starter's minutes. Simple solution: PLAY HIM STARTER'S MINUTES. I can't believe I need to tell you that, TT. It has been mathematically proven to make your team better. If he's good enough to play in the 4th quarter, he's good enough to play in the 1st quarter.

-Marco Belinelli is going to make all you Ronnie Brewer haters (you know who you are) missing the glory days of the baseline ninja by halftime of the opener tomorrow night. He's not good at anything, and is somehow going to be asked to play 12-20 minutes a game. Hopefully, if TT insists on playing Deng 44 minutes a game, we see some JFB at the 2 with the second unit. Of course, then our entire offense will be run through Nate Rob, but...that's just the kind of year it's going to be.

-Sigh...Go Bulls.

That's my Secret, TT. I'm Always Angry

First, let's talk about what TT did right. I challenged him earlier to sit Boozer on the bench in the playoffs when he's playing like crap, and yesterday he did. It would have been nice if TT had realized Boozer was a detriment before he played 27 crappy minutes, but at least he couldn't hurt us for the last 16 minutes of the game. Playing Asik and Rip the whole second half was the right call as well. Asik because obviously they didn't have another big to insert besides Boozer (unless he went to the White Mamba, and we all knew that wasn't happening,) and Rip because he was making things happen offensively.

Now the bad, from least egregious to most:
3. There was no reason for CJ to play the whole 2nd half. Not that I wanted JL3 to come in. But I've been screaming this all series long: What the hell is Mike James on the roster for if not to take over the point guard duties when both of your other point guards are playing terribly? Mike James could not have been any worse on both ends of the court than CJ was. CJ repeatedly lost track of Lou Williams down the stretch (including a particularly egregious one that led to a Williams 3 with 4 minutes left to give the Sixers a 1-point lead,) and also took some ugly jump shots in the 4th quarter, when there was no reason for CJ to be shooting jump shots. Much has been and will be made of Boozer's 1-11, which was bad in the grand scheme of things, but most of that is big-picture, contract and money type stuff. CJ was 2-11 last night, and still hurting us by taking shots in the 4th quarter, which is a far bigger reason we lost.

Also: Decision-making, which we'll get to in a minute.

2. For the second straight playoff series, the opposing coach got the better of TT on the clipboard. For some reason, the Bulls' defensive strategy the last 5 minutes was "switch-on-everything". The Sixers really could have taken more advantage of this one, there were a few possessions that had Elton Brand posting up Rip, but no one on the Sixers managed to recognize it and get it in to him. They did manage to post Iggy up on CJ, but CJ's quick hands saved them an easy 2.

But what really killed the Bulls was every possession in the last 1:15. I'm going to go to the BMO Harris Bank Telestrator here:
1:15- After somehow collecting the rebound after a bad Lou Williams off-balance 3 (where CJ might have been out of bounds, but it's hard to tell,) CJ pushes the ball up the floor to beat the 8 second clock (huge assist by White Mamba here. Watching the replay, CJ is just standing in the corner with the ball when the shot clock hits 20, and you can see Scal right next to CJ yelling at him to get across the timeline. CJ doesn't actually beat the clock, but there's no way the refs are calling a close 8-second violation there), then slows it down to run the clock (the Bulls are up 3 at this point.) For some reason, the play involves a man who is 2-10 on the day dribbling in the corner by himself for 8 seconds, then going over a Deng screen, (which Williams wisely decides to go under,) and takes a contested 3 with 4 seconds on the shot clock.
:56- Because of the long rebound, CJ is forced to try to stay with Iggy on the way back down, and fouls him to keep him from getting an easy layup. Holiday inbounds to Hawes, gets the ball back, comes off a Hawes screen and draws both TBN and Asik to the corner with him. Here's where we miss Jo. Jo is quick enough to either slow Holiday's momentum, just switch on to him for the rest of the possession (allowing TBN to switch to Hawes,) or get back in the paint in time. But it's Asik, so he gets stuck in the corner. Holiday drops it to Young, while Taj has to try to guard both big men until Asik can get back. Rip is caught in no mans land, not wanting to leave Iggy wide open behind the arc up 3.
:38- The Bulls use their last timeout. I'll get to this in a second as well.
CJ barely gets the ball to Rip (again out of timeouts), gets the ball back, dribbles to the corner, and sets up the screen and roll with Asik, which was probably the best run play of the game. It is, of course, a small miracle Asik caught that ball and finished it. (Assisted by terrible help by Thad Young, he had all the time in the world to rotate over, but he went for the steal instead of just getting in Asik's way. It's not like Asik was going to stop and take an 8-foot jumper.)
:25-  The Bulls, for the second time in the last 5 minutes, allow the Sixers to roll the ball to the frontcourt with no time being taken off the clock (considering they won the game with 2 seconds left, those ticks were pretty important). Iggy gets CJ switched on to him, but doesn't take advantage of it and dribbles over to Holiday. Holiday dribbles to the pain and gets stuck, kicking it back to Thad Young, who drives and makes a ridiculous scoop shot over Ronnie.
:12- Stacey- "You get your foul shooters in the...(pause, realizes the Bulls are out of timeouts) You find your free throw shooters."
CJ dribbles up court, and gets clearly fouled by Holiday with 10 seconds left. (You can clearly see Collins screaming at the refs for a foul while CJ is still coming downcourt. You know what happens next. I've said it for the last 2 years, CJ needs to get better at leading a break with a man advantage. Even if the Bulls were down 1 there, and needed a bucket instead of needing CJ to pull it back out, that wasn't a good pass. CJ always passes the ball too early. If he takes just one more dribble towards the corner, he's either fouled by Hawes or Williams, or Hawes has come away from Asik enough for Asik to finish that dunk. Because he passes so early, Hawes has time to get back to Asik and foul him. (Flagrant? Maybe, but you can't really call that there.) If CJ is back in a Bulls uniform next year, he's got to get better at this part of his game. That and, ya know, not passing the ball to 45% free throw shooter up 1 with 7 seconds left in an elimination game.
:7- Between Asik free throws, Stacey with more premonition: "Watch the runout. Ronnie Brewer and CJ Watson got to watch the runout on a miss..." Man, I wish they had heard you.
Asik's second free throw goes up. Taj is pushed to the middle by Hawes, and Iggy comes behind, sealing him off. Deng, for some reason, tries to go under Thad Young, and only succeeds in putting himself directly under the basket, where he's no help to anyone. Ronnie follows Holiday into the lane (where Holiday is boxing out Asik,) but gets stuck behind him somehow. It was kind of like Ronnie didn't know whether to play safe defense on Holiday, or crash for an offensive rebound, so he did neither. Holiday does a great job of just standing in Brewer's way, too, so he can't help on defense. CJ just stays with Lou Williams on the wing the whole way, instead of coming over and stopping the ball. (You have to give a good amount of credit to Iggy, he was significantly faster than any of the Bulls to get down the court. You can't even blame it on the Bulls' minutes, as Iggy played the whole 2nd half as well.)
:2- The Bulls call a timeout, move the ball to halfcourt, set up a play, and...
Oh, wait, no that's what they would have done had they HAD ANY FUCKING TIMEOUTS LEFT. Which leads to problem #1:

#1: TT overmanages to Lou Pinella proportions. The most useful thing a timeout can do for you, more than killing momentum or setting up a play, is to move the ball to the frontcourt late in a close game. But for that to be true, you have to save some timeouts for the end.

Know who always has a timeout late in a game? Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson. Phil would let his team play through bad stretches, not only showing faith in his players, but saving those timeouts for when they're really necessary. Same thing with Pop. Or he could have used it on the possession before to get Korver and Rip in the game for Ronnie and Asik. You can't play offense/defense when you have no timeouts, so here are the FT percentages of the players that played the final minute:
CJ- 81%, TBN- 56%, Deng- 77%, Taj- 62%, Asik- 46%. You have a timeout, you can take Asik and Ronnie out and have Taj inbound to 4 guys all over 75% from the line. Because you used your timeouts to set up set plays with 4 minutes left, that's why your last 4 minutes were chaotic.

Is it fair to always compare TT to coaches like Pop and Jackson? I'm forced to by everyone who seems to think the sun shines out of his ass all the time. There's a reason those two men have won 15 of the last 21 championships. And both of them are known for not overmanaging (I'd also say Rudy T and Rick Carlisle fall onto the more relatively mellow side of NBA head coaches, leaving only Riley, Larry Brown, and maybe Doc Rivers as more uptight championship coaches.

TT makes those three look like Tommy Chong. And story upon story is written about how this is a good thing. It's not. It leads to all your best players being injured, your 4th best big man playing more minutes than your 1st or 2nd (depending on the day) because you're too stubborn to just start two power forwards, and running out of timeouts with 2 minutes left in a close game.

This is not how you win championships.

Also, you need better players. But I'll get to that tomorrow.