Bulls win 110-89. 33-14 and won 5 in a row. Bulls 48% Pacers 40% Bulls 46-39 rebounding edge. Boozer 10 Boozer 24, Rose, McRoberts 20,Granger, Deng 19. korver 16,dunleavy 13,Price 12,collison 11
That was a strange ending. The bulls got a few calls and non calls and the Pacers used it as an excuse to absolutely fall apart down the stretch.
I'm not sure Thibodeau deserves to be coach of the year. He's made a ton of substitution errors this season, not to mention liberally using timeouts only to run out of them at the end of tight games. I don't think Thibodeau is an experienced enough in-game coach to deserve the honor. I also remain pissed about Bogans starting -- it's a luxury and unnecessary. I feel like it's Thibodeau being obstinate in response to criticism and it's not a decision he would make again if there was no pressure. These are all hallmarks of rookie coaches and will improve. As to the game tonight, the only thing I took away is that I'm not sure I like the dynamic of fans in regard to Scalabrini at the end of games. When a game becomes a blowout, I think you try to escape without your opponent feeling that it was embarrassed. You take your starters out and go into a slowdown offense so that the opposing team doesn't feel like you're trying to run up the score. But when Scalabrini comes in, the crowd goes nuts and the vibe gets weird. It's not Scalabrini's fault, but it does kind of make him a liability.
Nice win. I love happy endings. Deng as our assist leader? Must be one of those "parallel universe" thingees.
I don't think he's the best coach, FWIW. Far from it. However, I think the Bulls have made the biggest jump from borderline playoff team to near-elite. No offense to Boozer, but he's nowhere the boost in personnel that Lebron and Bosh are to the Heat. The Bulls have also become an elite defensive squad so I'd be hard-pressed to find a reason not to put Thibs in the top 3 COY voting. I wouldn't mind if Popovich (who in my opinionis the best coach in the league) won. And leave Scalabrini alone! He's our victory cigar
Heh... I don't know if Thibs deserves to be coach of the year, but Jim O'Brien surely does not. Everyone here in Indy is calling for his head, and I think tonight is another indication as to why. Anyone notice that Josh McRoberts went completely bananas tonight? That kid can play. He can shoot, rebound, pass, block shots... the works. He started out the year playing great, as did Hibbert. Then O'Brien told McRoberts to camp out and shoot threes (a la Antoine Walker) and he slumped and got completely benched. Hibbert was playing awesome and O'Brien publicly launched into him and said he wasn't playing well enough. Hibbert completely lost confidence and has actually gone to see a shrink. At various points O'Brien benched Collison for complete dead-ender TJ Ford. Meanwhile, the Pacers season has completely fallen apart. Now, I don't think the Pacers have all that much to work with, but O'Brien's job this year makes Vinny look like John Wooden. As a side note, when they get Tyler Hansbrough back, McRoberts is a guy we should look at. He can do lots of stuff, and he'll be parked back on the end of their bench. You can always use more bigs, and I'd like KT to have a little bit of tread left when we hit the playoffs.
Honestly, the guy you're probably talking about is Gar Forman for Exec of the year. Yeah, Riley reeled in the big Kahunas, but Forman built a team and found the right coach for them.
