The spurs are really old. Parker 27 (still young) Bonner 29 Duncan 33 Finley 36 Jefferson 29 McDyess 35 Ratliff 36
WTF I typed my shit before Denny and I get 2nd place on the spurs are old train. But they really are old.
I'm encouraged. I didn't think any of the spurs played enough last night to be tired. Everybody looked good at times tonight. We'll see how they follow it up tomorrow night, but everything worked tonight against a very good team. Tyrus's second half was especially important because he looked like he was two weeks from the waiver wire in the first half. He might need to run a quarter marathon before each game because he was forcing everything early.
Deng looked great. Like he did the season before he was given his huge contract. When he was on, his shot was near automatic. He shot close to 60% from the SF position for most of that season before tailing off at the end. He was a pretty strong rebounder for a SF and had a few blocked shots. Silky smooth around the basket with a variety of ways of getting the ball in the basket. He hasn't played that way for but a stretch of last season since the contract, mainly due to injuries. I sure liked what I saw tonight. I hope he's good for 82 games like this.
This was a good start to the season. With the exception of Salmons everyone played like you'd hope they would, and we looked pretty crisp throughout the game. Luol Deng's play was the most encouraging; he was pretty slippery on offense and looked like he was playing for Scott Skiles again. Taj Gibson isn't graceful but he looks like he could stay in the league for 5-7 years, he's always around the ball. Obviously too early to tell but I sure have seen worse starts to the season! Go Bulls!
Yeah, this was a heck of a lot more fun than the last couple years. Biggest things I noted: 1. We really excelled on the boards, something we stank at last year. Noah and Deng really carried the day here, but Gibson was obviously helpful off the bench, and both Tyrus and Miller did well. Where we were often in dreadful position last year, we were in good position and really fighting for boards this year. 2. Defensively Noah and Tyrus kept position better, and everyone seemed to be fighting through screens, which no one seemed to do last year. 3. Deng and Tyrus looked like a real set of players.
Agreed with MikeDC. Hinrich and Rose looked good to me as well. Salmons is a bit worrying. A minor mysterious thing to me is to have lineups with 3 bigs (with TT at 3) and then later play with just 1 big (with Deng at the 4). They both can't be the right lineup, can they?
