POST CHICAGO

It's just one game, they'll bounce back.

8th game in the last 12 nights. 5th game in the last 7 nights.

The Bulls just lost at NJ and Philly. I think they were looking forward to this game.

Hats off to coach Thibs who got the Bulls playing D at the right time.

In the pre-game thread I said that I didn't think Rose and Boozer were enough to beat us. Wrong again. They had 3 players in double figures and one of them, Ronnie Brewer, only had 10. That's pretty much the Rose and Boozer show. I also want to heartily concur with 112288's opinion of the NBA TV announcers. When Stacey King (5 years with the Bulls) referred to Kurt Thomas as "Big Sexy", I thought I was going to throw up.

1. Rose was unconscious last night. His 31 points came from everywhere and always under control. Due to our porous perimeter defense he was able to penetrate virtually at will. With only 2 assists, though, I think he was clear in his mind what his role last night had to be and it wasn't setting up his teammates. I've always liked Rose's game, but this was the best shooting game I've seen from him.

2. I also said in the pre-game thread that Davis and Luke were going to have their hands full with Boozer. Unfortunately, I was right this time. When Boozer's hitting his mid-range shots he is very tough to stop. He probably has the second best footwork for a big man in the NBA after The Big Fundamental. What made it completely unfair was the refs letting him play with his elbows neck-high all game. The first time he popped Davis, King said it was "unintentional". He also said that after the second time, when Davis went down hard. What infuriated me was when King said, into his mike, "Get Up!", in a derisive tone after Davis got dropped, like it was a flop. I remember Stacey King as a player. He was soft. Tough as nails now though, isn't he?

3. I also agree with 112288's opinion of Rondo. He was uncreative and not aggressive on both ends last night. When he got up on Rose, and Rose tried to run him off a pick, our defensive spacing was too far apart and Rose repeatedly squirted between the pick and his defender. Can't blame Rondo for that, but he didn't make Rose pay on the other end either. He did have 5 steals though, and that helped us keep this game close for most of it. It seems to me, though, that his steals were more opportunistic (like the last one where the ball bounced loose and almost into his hands) and not a result of smothering defense. We're averaging over 24 assists per game, we only got 12 this one.

4. Davis is in a bit of a shooting slump. It happens to everybody. He did have four steals last night though. That's 9, between Davis and Rondo. That's not bad. Davis' inside game, which he went to when his outside touch left him early, was eviscerated by Tom T's outstanding help defense. He was repeatedly blocked on his shots inside as players swarmed him. Taj Gibson, in particular, had 4 blocks and most of them, I think, were on Davis.

5. We shot 38%. It is almost impossible to win with a shooting percentage like that. They shot 49%. Even with fewer fga, that's eminently winnable.

6. We got 27 rebounds and they got 48. That's ridiculous. The announcers last night pointed out, correctly for a change, that all night we were "one and done", that we made no efforts to attack the offensive boards and fell back on defense immediately. I think my position on this has been stated enough times to not spend much time here, but I will say that a change should have been made given our crappy shooting percentage last night. Davis got 2, Rondo 1 and Luke got 1 in just 13 minutes of play. So much for our vaunted height advantage.

7. JON's knee hurts. Doc has said that his knee will probably ache for the rest of his life. That's unfortunate, in general, and really so this year. Shaq is slipping towards being a caricature of himself.

8. We blew a bunch of bunnies. Pierce, Shaq, JON, Ray; they all missed shots at or around the basket. If they hit 80% of those shots this is a "whomever has the ball last wins" type of game. If you're missing 2-footers, the 20 footers get harder too.

9. Our bench played a total of 62 minutes. Here's their collective stat line: 7 rebounds (2 by Luke), 0 assists, 1 steal (Semih?!), 2 blocks, 4 TOs (out of a team total of eight), 8 personal fouls (JON with 5), 10 points on 2-10 shooting. Now, here's the Chicago bench's collective stat line: 84 minutes total (35% more than the Celtic's bench), 16 rebounds with 4 offensive (229% more rebs than the C's and 400% more offensive rebounds), 5 assists (what's 5/0?), 3 steals (300% more than the C's), 5 blocks (4 by Taj Gibson and 250% more total), 7 TOs (FINALLY, a category we did well in), 8 PFs (100%, considering they played more minutes, that's a win for their bench), 14 points on 6-14 shooting. I fully realize that stats aren't an end-all-be-all and don't always tell the story, but it seems to me that our bench didn't keep us close.

We are now only 1 game ahead (in the loss column) of the streaking Miami HEAT, who have an 8 game winning streak going. KG's coming back, Perk's coming back and West should be 3 weeks or so behind Perk. We need them.

bob

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Fans revel when their team wins and despond when they lose. Last night, they lost. Doesn't make them a bad team, nor does it make us bad fans. They're not giving up and we're not quitting on them. They'll spend some time watching videos of what they did wrong and critique their work just as we reviewed their performance today.

bob

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cowens/oldschool wrote:.....so when are the refs ever going to be held accountable?don't they get reviewed?

cow,

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5734373

bob

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