It always sucks when it becomes blatantly obvious that there is more than a little WWE in the NBA. At least Boozer is looking better. His worst mistake was actually trying to closeout on Josh Smith. Rose has to has to get a blow to start the fourth.
The announcers repeatedly talked about how the Bulls have Boozer (when they run plays for him) and nobody else outside of Rose who can create their own shot. Aldridge even raised the question to Josh Smith in the post game interview. Nothing wrong with giving up 100 points, you just have to score 101 to win.
Agree with you Bullshooter. Thibodeau needs to sit Rose at the beginning of the fourth or he runs out of gas. Thibodeau has to be more disciplined if he expects his team to play more disciplined. There are a lot of places where you can place blame for the loss, but that's where you start.
I think so. Or at the very least, Thibodeau has shown that he's not an elite coach right now. He needed to get himself rung up with a T early in the fourth (when it was clear how the officiating was trending) and then settle down and get his team focussed. It all just felt frantic.
The refs were certainly calling the game like they wanted a seven game series. Forget the inadvertent whistle, I can think of five or six other questionable calls down the stretch, including the Korver blocking call, and two drives by Rose where he drew a ton of contact. Its been a while since I rooted for a contender in the playoffs, but I can remember similar stuff during the last Bulls run. It's always been tougher to get calls when you're ahead in a series. That aside, I'm not sure how I feel about Chucks statements. The Bulls' offense is mediocre which has a lot to do with both Thibodeau and even more to do with the roster, as you have mentioned many times. I think the offense may be bad enough so that thirty shots is not inappropriate for Rose. (Can I slip in one more comment about Thibodeau's decision making: Why was Korver guarding Teague instead of Jamal down the stretch? He seemed to play Crawford well at the end of game two, and Teague just destroyed him? Another very questionable coaching decision.)
The discussion about the Bulls lack of offense beyond Rose and Boozer was lengthy on TNT last night. On one hand, they were saying that Rose passing the ball didn't make sense because of who he would be passing to. On the other, 32 shots and 10 assists is the kind of game that Iverson played, especially when you figure in the low FG%. They also talked about the Hawks defense and that getting the ball out of Rose's hands is bad news for the Bulls because they have nobody else who can create for themselves. And that they don't have to guard Bogans at all, making the job a lot easier. I'm not ready to throw Thibs under the bus for the losses. It's hard to argue that he didn't get the most out of the roster as constructed, or that he should go away from what's been successful all along. The Bulls clearly needed Korver out there to shoot and score, but he had a lousy game. In the previous games, Crawford made Korver his bitch even if he wasn't making his shots. Crawford is a dangerous player for them. He had games of 23, 25, 23, 25, 8, and 19 points against Orlando. The guy can be cold for 3 quarters then heat up like a microwave (unlike anyone we have but Rose, and too infrequently maybe Deng). Like I wrote in the predict the games thread, Atlanta is clearly benefiting from Hinrich being out. They don't need his defense to stop Rose as we can see from Rose's 11-27, 10-27, and 12-32 shooting nights, and Teague is the real deal. Crawford guarded Rose pretty much the whole time he was in, and look at the job he did (some vindication for Jamal). My point about playing like it's going to be a 7 game series is that we had a huge need to take 1 of 2 in Atlanta, so mission accomplished. Hold the home court advantage (win all the remaining home games) and we move on. Two wins would have buried Atlanta, sending them back to the friendly confines in Chicago down 3-1. We didn't seem to be going all out to win this game. You have to credit Drew for making adjustments in Atlanta's lineup as well. He inserted Collins at the starting C position, and nearly tripled Zaza's minutes compared to the previous three games. On the Bulls side, Deng has to give us much more than he did last night. 13 points in 45 minutes on 5-14 shooting while allowing Johnson to go 9-14 for 24 points. Taj had ZERO rebounds, but otherwise had a very good game.
Same story with this series. We shoot 41% from the field and 19% from 3. The Hawks shoot 49%. Rebounding is about even. That's a losing formula for the Bulls. They came out aggressive and down the stretch shreded us inside. Horford and Smith show up. And JJ is dropping bombs. Lots of talent on that team and they played together last night. Rose looked like Iverson last night. Now, Iverson got his team to the finals last year. But still, on O, the Hawks were playing team ball down the stretch and the Bulls were not. Rose is looking like the younger player he is getting truly playoff tested for the first time. MJ needed to alter his game to become a champ to involve other players. Rose played selfish down the stretch (but, with Deng and Korver shooting as they were, what were the other options?). Its not like Westbrook down the stretch Saturday not passing to Durant. These adjustments in his game will happen over time. Can the Bulls org give him a Pippen, HoG, Rodman and Kukoc to play with? At this point, the Bulls win if they are hitting jumpshots and can keep it close if they are not. Bulls should still win this series, but will have to be hitting Js every game to hang in the ECFs.
