"When the Bulls make their home exhibition debut Friday night against the Wizards, they will stare directly at two reminders of current struggles. Carlos Boozer, cast on his fractured right fifth metacarpal, is expected to attend and will remind all of the post presence the Bulls lack yet again, not to mention his rebounding ability. And Kirk Hinrich, no doubt an odd sight in a visitor's jersey, will lessen ball-handling duties on Wizards rookie John Wall instead of Derrick Rose like he did the last two seasons. Those areas — post scoring, a secondary ball-handler and rebounding — once again were mostly absent Thursday night in the Bulls' 88-83 loss to the Mavericks at American Airlines Center. Though Taj Gibson fared better than in Tuesday's opener in Milwaukee and Joakim Noah delivered a strong effort with 13 points, eight rebounds and six assists, the Bulls couldn't overcome a 54-34 rebounding deficit and 25 Mavericks' second-chance points. "We're small," coach Tom Thibodeau said. "So we have to gang rebound. If we can't do that, we won't be successful. We can't leak out. We have guys taking off early trying to get on the break. They need to get in the fight first." Though Thibodeau continues to insist Boozer's estimated two-month absence won't change the Bulls' offensive philosophy, it will alter offensive production. "We were inside-out and made good, quick decisions," Thibodeau said. "The ball movement was better. But we still have to get the ball in the paint more." Having a sure-handed ball-handler other than Rose would help. And thus far, nobody has emerged to fill Hinrich's void in that department. "It's going to be weird playing against him," Rose said. "He put me under his wing."" Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...s-mavericks-chicago--20101007,0,2719923.story
Superstars play 40 minutes, so we only need like 2 minutes/quarter of ballhandling when Rose is out. Watson's fine, so is Lucas. I'd like to see Kyle Weaver get some action and see if he couldn't be a secondary ballhandler as well. I think he'd be good at it.
Kyle Weaver against the Wizards: 17:23 2-4 FG 1-1 3Pt 4 Reb 5 Ast 1 TO 5 pts. There's the 2nd ballhandler, no?
I am not really worried about the ball handling issue. Thibodeau's offense is heavy motion and there are a lot of willing passes on this team. Interesting cameo from Weaver the other night and Watson has capacity to grow into the role . On top of this Brewer is a noted ballhandler and can distribute some ( in a secondary role ) and James Johnson also has capacity to be a passing playmaker or initiator of his own offense Rebounding is fine too. Although I support the Dampier pursuit and this really stacks our front court if we're really going to make a run in the East. The suggestion that Taj plays 30 minutes a night backing the 4 and 5 as suggested by some blog writers is fucking lunacy And Omer , whilst intriguing , likely won't add as much as a rookie as to what Kurt Thomas and Erick Dampier would. Go with the vets in Dampier and Thomas to partner Jo to start the season until Boozer is back - and get through the Circus trip - and then use Taj and Omer in "energy" minutes initially .....and then in "donkey minutes" when we have stablised and we going down the stretch of a season heading toward say a 52 win target . This way ...Omer and Taj will have some confidence coming into the playoffs and Kurt and Damp would be a bit more rested A big man rotation of Joakim and Booze , Damp and Kurt , and then Omer and Taj is exceptiionally strong and deep with a role there for all to play I would leave James Johnson as Lu Deng's reserve at small forward which would see him playing 15 minutes a game . Scalabrine is the 3rd string hybrid stretch forward. Korver starts at 2 and splits minutes with Brewer. Rose plays 38 minutes a game and I'd go with Watson as his back up Weaver and Bogans are the 3rd string reserves across both guard spots That's our 15 man roster
FJ: I think that's a pretty good bet on how things will shake out, with the exception that Brewer looks like the man as starting two with Korver coming off the bench. I understand why Thibodeau seems to be leaning that way: Korver may be better as a starter against three-quarters of the league, but Brewer is an asset as a lock down perimeter defender. Brewer would be better against the Lakers, the Heat, the Celtics and maybe the Magic, especially in a seven game series. I think Thibodeau is looking big picture at the playoffs and ready to build with an eye toward May, even if it comes at the expense of wins during the regular season.
The other team's wing studs are going to get awfully tired chasing Deng and Korver off the ball I'd prefer to use Ronnie fresh when they're hitting an energy sap level where a guy like Ronnie would be more effective. Ronnie is not going to stop Wade, Pierce, Kobe , Roy etc being who they are . He can niggle them and make them work for it ..but having more reliance on a up tempo push style and a lot more motion over the next couple of months with Booze out...maybe the better form of defense is attack if we use Deng and Korver a lot off the ball which frees up Jo as our energy big to be crashing the O boards for opportunity buckets etc For these reasons I would go with Korver
At the end of the day its axiomatic that the team that scores the most points wins but the best defense is one that locks down tight enough that the team doesn't have to be spectacular or work all that hard on offense to accomplish that goal.
Korver has looked great in Thibo's offense. But let's see what Brewer brings, hmm? I mean, most people i've seen have felt that Korver is a revelation as Thibo is using him. Maybe Brewer will explore some new aspects of his game under Thibo as well?
Something that seems to be overlooked a lot is that, just like in football, playing "uphill" is a lot harder than playing "downhill". In football, a team that gets ahead can control the clock and can afford to work harder on defense and slow the pace on offense. It's generally not talked about too much, but this is certainly true in basketball too. Even though it's often mentioned that it's a "game of runs", the team that runs ahead at the beginning gets several advantages and usually wins. Why? Because they can afford to be more deliberate on offense and more aggressive on defense if you sprint up the hill before your opponent.
