Korver needs to hit his shots in order to justify his place out there. He usually does. Bad night last night. He opens things up for Derrick down the stretch. He had some good looks in the 4th if I recall. One of his threes did everything but go in the hoop. The Bulls won't shoot 34% every game. The scariest thing about last night's game from a series persective was the emergence of Haslem, IMO. Once Miami gets a group of role players down there over the next couple of years they are going to be REALLY hard to handle. This is the year to take them down.
Boozer was having trouble inside because he'd be double and triple teamed. Taj is better suited for playing on the wing, but it didn't really open the floor for Rose. Taj did hit a couple of outside shots, but I think Miami was quite happy to see him shooting instead of Rose.
This might be one of those, "we musta been watching different games" things, but he got the ball in a position of advantage on most of his shots. Normally, when Boozer is able to get the ball cleanly up on the backboard, he's money. Last night...not so much. He only had one blocked, which is good for him lately. He didn't hit any of his jumpers, but he had good looks. Boozer is what he is. He has warts. Lots of good players do. The problem with last night is that he didn't do what he normally does well. Neither did Korver. Neither did Rose. They're all big boys. They all had bad games. Yeah, the Heat were trying to keep them from scoring, but that's not going to change. They all need to find a way and I think they will.
Sorry, but that logic doesn't work. Those strong defenders held the Heat to 2 points in the first 7 and a half minutes of the 4th quarter. The game turned when Wade split Asik's chin open with an elbow. If they could figure out how to throw a lob to Asik at the rim, they'd be unstoppable. The bulls are a good team now and Rose is the only guy good enough to warrant playing through the rough spots. Nobody else has demonstrated enough consistency to warrant a pass. Boozer's defense was bad again and he was consistently late rotating. And he wasn't the answer for the bulls problems down the stretch last night. So there was no reason to go back to him when he probably would have made things worse. The days of playing guys 40 minutes just to get 5 good ones are long gone.
Thibodeau didn't need to take Asik out either. This is neither here or there though. I'll criticize Thibodeau for not sitting Rose to start the third, but I find it hard to criticize his decision to take Asik off the court. I would have probably brought back Noah too.
