I see Matt at Blogabull and Kelly Dwyer both taking it to the Bulls for playing tiny ball. I'm not sure that's right. 1. The game was not decided by the Bulls utter refusal to play Tyrus or to go big in the 4th quarter. * OK, seems hard to justify, doesn't it? We had difficulties on the boards, we had our top two bigs in foul trouble, and we played Lindsay Lee Hunter (how come they keep dropping his middle name like he's an assassin or serial killer?) over Tyrus. Yes, that's silly, but that's when we actually brought the game closer. * Tyrus didn't play that well. * And finally, ask yourself this question. Who do you pull to put Tyrus in, if the goal is to come back, play at a "normal" size, and leave Miller or Noah on the floor too? Your choices are Derrick Rose, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich and John Salmons. In the specific context of this game, in which the opposition was Pierce, House, Allen, and Rondo (figure our biggest guy takes Perkins). See what I'm getting at here? In the specific context of this game, with Kirk playing well and Salmons not, I suppose you'd have to go with taking Salmons out (since he wasn't doing much offensively) and playing Tyrus on Pierce or Allen. Does that strike anyone as a grand idea? Not me, especially given that Tyrus hadn't played much that way the entire series. Offensively, I'm not sure what we create with that either because in the abstract I'd certainly prefer Salmons taking a shot to Tyrus. So on the whole... I think the Bulls were probably playing their 5 best players. They actually cut in to the lead and made it a game playing that way, they just didn't get any of the theatrical and manufactured shots from BG, Salmons or Rose that the needed at the end. My solution: * Somehow they need to turn some combination of Tyrus+picks+your choice of Kirk/Deng/Salmons into a top notch big man and keep the rest. If you're out there with Rose (plus experience), Gordon, one of Deng/Salmons/Kirk, Chris Bosh/Amare/etc and one of Miller/Noah... I think you win this game with a 4th quarter comeback. If I were Gar Paxson, that's what I'd be selling hard to Jerry Reinsdorf to get him to pony up. If we can get the truly special big, this team could be a contender. Without... we're too many pieces that don't fit well enough together. * Alternate solution... if you're a believer in Deng (I am, I'm just not a believer in Deng's health), then Deng at the 4 in that lineup looks a lot better than Salmons at the 4 in that lineup. I think if Deng's healthy, he's out there on the floor and either Kirk (who played really well) or Salmons (who didn't) is on the bench. Maybe we come back and win that way. I think I still prefer a to give up more and get a guy like Bosh, but it's a start to be fully healthy. 2. This game was lost in the second quarter with a properly sized lineup out there. * The 22-2 blast the Celtics laid on us to end the second quarter came consistently against every lineup we could through out there. We had two out of three of Noah/Miller/Tyrus out there at all times. With the smaller guys, the only guy we didn't pull was Rose (who did not have a good stretch, to say the least). We tried Rose/Gordon/Hinrich, Rose/Gordon/Salmons, Rose/Hinrich/Salmons, and continued to lose ground in every case. * My main observation is that the NBA is very often a game of runs, and despite every combination we could neither score nor stop, and thus we couldn't stop the runs. The problem was we could never get on a real run of our own later. * Some of that starts with Rose, who was pretty manhandled during this period and also shot 0-5, when he was the only common element in the whole sorry quarter. Some starts up front with the big guys that we have totally not dominating what ought to have been inferior competition. This isn't to say Vinnie should be coach of the year or anything. He sure as hell isn't. What I am saying is that in the end, the loss was directly attributable to the fact that we have a very talented but still rookie PG, and, we got shellacked in the second Q and couldn't stop them, and (for the first time and only time in the 6 games it mattered) couldn't get enough buckets in the forth Q (which, if you're keeping score, means we did quite well at that in 5 of 6 games).
The TNT announcers kept saying that when the Bulls went small it was to their advantage. You force Boston to take out Big Baby and put in a guy like House or Tony Allen. Those guys are not as good as Big Baby and it's reasonable to say Hinrich is better than either of the two. We win. Thomas got killed by Big Baby all series. It's hard to say if he's that good or if he's just that good against us. It's pretty interesting that Harris and Bickerstaff wouldn't talk to Vinnie about playing him over Miller, considering all the turnovers Miller committed.
The bulls were at a disadvantage because they had to do so much switching because Rose and yes, especially BG couldn't cover their guys. That continually left Big Baby and Perkins switched onto guards and standing on the blocks. Not a hard shot for those two. The bulls bigs didn't actually do that badly. They still got pushed around some, but when it was two bigs on two bigs it was pretty much 50-50. The problem was that the C's continually ran pick and rolls to get the switches. And the Tyrus thing was strange. I'd like to hear more about that from the inside. I think his frustrations with not getting anything on the offensive side took him out of the game mentally. He went from hitting big shots in game 1 to not playing in the second half. It feels like he is a candidate to be moved.
My personal preference would have been to give Tyrus a bit more run but I think it's understandable why VDN didn't. So I'm not buying the claims either.
1.) We needed Rose to be great. Other than game one and the first half of game 6 he wasn't. 2.) Gordon was noticeably affected by the hammy in games 6 and 7. 3.) Inconsistent play from Salmons. We really leaned on this guy the last 1/2 of the reg season, and he performed. He was non-existnat for much of the playoffs. 4.) Inability to slow down Kendrick Perkins and Glen Davis. These two guys looked like massive, seasoned veterans compared to the still very raw (and not physical) play of TT and Noah (less so). 5.) Average defense from our guards. 6.) Lack of inside physical presence from our bigs. Sure, Tyrus gets a lot of blocks, but intereor defense is also about imposing a physical will over the painted area. We don't have that. It was a fun series. But at the end of the day we're a 41-41 team who got knocked off in the 1st round by a team missing their MVP caliber player.
Whenever I was watching the games, it never really bothered me when Tyrus wasn't in. Despite his flyswatting, he didn't seem to affect how other people played very much. He can't body up big guys, and Noan and Miller can, to varying degrees. After watching the series I have doubts about Tyrus and Noah long term. They're both too slender and overlap too much in their strengths/weaknesses. In particular, Tyrus' inability to get rebounds in traffic worries me. His reb/40 is mediocre, and he only seems to get boards when there aren't too many other people around. I would try and package one of the two plus one of our expiring and a guy from our backcourt to try and get a very good frontcourt player. If that can't be done, I would go bargain hunting for an oafish slob-knocker who can take up space for 15-20 min/ a game.
I basically agree with all of this as well. Except maybe there is some hope with Tyrus rebounding. Per 36 mins, he snagged 8.1 bounds in the playoffs and 8.4 bounds during the season. But he was at 9.3 bounds last year. And 10 rebounds his rookie year. He would be fine @9.5 per 36. So perhaps there is some room for optimism.
I was listening to a little sports radio the other day and the fellas were saying that Scottie Pippen in his early years with the Bulls was WAY rawer a player than Tyrus Thomas is. A interesting point. Not sure if I agree with it. See, Tyrus isn't just raw. He just seems basketball retarded. He does not seem to have the body / game to be a 4. I don't trust him with the ball enough for him to a 3. There's one thing being raw. But when his body fills out will be magically start understanding how to play basketball? Miller and Noah at the 5 is really solid. The 4 spot on this team is a giant black hole. Last 5 minutes of an important game and I'm not comfortable at all with Tyrus on the floor. That being said, he showed some signs in the clutch game 1 of this series. He was a positive factor in that game. Ugh. Tyrus Thomas. My how you vex me.
Go back and look at Pippen and especially Grant from the late 80's. As far a body goes, Tyrus looks exactly like them. Tyrus' problem is he wants the ball on both ends and he's still a little over-aggressive. He needs more reps to figure out what's a good idea and what's bad. In the series on offense he was drifting further and further away from the basket as the game went on because there was such a profound lack of ball movement at times and he wasn't getting the ball. His last shot was a 20 footer. Tyrus would benefit from more consistent touches, and the bulls would benefit from his more even play.
I guess this is what I'm not sure of. To me, he looks like a really, really bad decision maker who has very little feel for the game of basketball. At this point, he's played in college and a few years in the pros, and it seems like he does not know whats going on out there. I'm no so sure it will come with more playing time. Maybe he's just basketball dumb.
I'm going to defend Tyrus, at least for now, because I'm nothing if not a sports apologist. None of you seem to be making the claim that Tyrus should be as prepared from day one as a four year college athlete. But I think it's important to remember what Tyrus' experience level was coming in to the league. He was never a bluechip like the Eddy Currys and Tyson Chandlers of the world. He didn't play against A-level talent in high school or at the high-school all-star games. He never played against international youth, and he didn't work out with NBA players until the off-season before he was drafted. Thomas was about as green as they could come. I think it would be easy to give up on Tyrus now given his frustratingly slow, but regular, progress. I just think we have to remember that not all preps-to-pros or one year college players are the same. Tyrus didn't have the advantages of many preps coming into the league, even with his year in college.
We passed on Brandon Roy for him, and traded LeMarcus Aldridge for him. Though technically he was picked #4, Pax would have taken him at #2, and that's basically what it cost us - the #2. The expectations for a #2 guy reasonably should be a lot higher than what's been delivered so far.
That's not the issue unless the topic is grading Pax on past decisions. The real issue is whether to cut your losses and trade him or give him more time. With the basic assumption that he has some trade value but not too much.
He's perfectly suited to be a back up. I don't advocate trading him unless we find a sucker who thinks he's the next Amare.
I don't have any evidence to support this, but I suspect the reason his rebound rate has gone down throughout his career is because he's consistently playing more minutes against first-tier players. If that's the case, then he either just doesn't have it in him or he needs time for his body to mature. I actually think it's the latter, since his instincts seem okay and his numbers aren't awful, but I suspect it could take 3 years until Tyrus finally fills his body out.
