I fully admit I'm guilty of riding Keith Bogans all season for his putrid play, but I'm rather stunned by attitudes toward the rest of the players. Boozer plays hurt for 15 games and gives us 15/10 intead of 20/12 like he should, and the fans rag on him. Noah is a toothpick and energy guy who's been great for us at cleaning up our (too many) missed shots and giving us second chances. He's up against a lineup of 4 guys the shortest being 6'8" 250lbs and it's no surprise his numbers go down. So the fans rag on him. Rose isn't the Rose who we saw in the regular season. Here's a clue folks, he is pretty much the same Rose we saw against Indy and Atlanta. 8-27 or 10-27, there isn't that much a drop off suddenly. And I see the fans saying he isn't ready or other negative kinds of things about the kid. I'm seeing this kind of thing on other forums. Wade never won a championship on his own, and I think he's been as good as Rose for many seasons. It took a pairing with a prime time Shaq to win a championship. We have no prime time Shaq or anyone close to him. It's painfully obvious to me that Thibs isn't the greatest offensive coach. The guy runs out of timeouts before the games are over. He called a timeout, drew up a play, and the Bulls turned the ball over with the game on the line. It's also painfully obvious to me that he's struggled to make adjustments, but I don't pin that on him. It's the way the roster is made up. When the Bulls were behind, he had no choice but play Korver and Boozer together. He even tried playing Rose and Watson together. The thing is, and this gets back to Bogans, we trained as a team to play well in the regular season. Bogans started and a guy like Ronnie Brewer, who is a starting caliber SG in the NBA, plays against 2nd teams. When he's called upon to give us that starting caliber SG playing time in the playoffs against the Heat's starting lineup, he's not been prepared. Which gets me back to Bogans. Why wasn't he in the game in Q4 and OT? Thibs was looking to shake things up and played Watson instead and we got buried. A look at the line score says we won Q1 19-16 with Bogans and Q3 22-19 with Bogans and had our biggest leads in those quarters.
Bulls fans? As compared to whom? But I wonder if you intend to say what it sounds like you're saying, to the effect that if you (or someone as smart as you) were the coach of the Bulls, we wouldn't be in this mess. I don't think so. I think you're just trying to work through the decisions made and see if some other ones would have been better. I'm willing to take the good with the bad at this point. The good has been pretty good. Still a chance to get better.
If Boozer was hurt at the start of the playoffs, the Bulls did him a huge disservice that by not announcing this at the time or retroactively. He stunk against the Pacers and it is widely reported that his toe popped in the close out game.
I thought Brewer played well in game 4, in a role he's not accustomed too. If he can get a consistent 3 point shot, he can be the starting 2 guard on this team. He's a beast on D, attacks the rim, can shoot midrange. I think Boozer gave you what Boozer is going to give you the last two games. I'm not sure what to do at this point. The only guy I'm really disappointed in is Korver. He's just a wuss. Rose shot out of nowhere to be the youngest MVP in league history. This was the biggest NBA pressure cooker he's played in, and he struggled. Lebron bailed on his team after years of failures. This was Roses first real test. He struggled. He needs to learn. The issue is that he can't change his body type. He'll have to learn to deal with monsters like Bron and Bosh and Wade double teaming him. Much easier said than done. Rose will also have to learn to play a team game more on offense. He's been pretty much a one man wrecking crew this year and less of a point guard. Getting his teammates involved and running an offense will have to be more of the priority. Its scary to think about where he can improve. It will be on D, turning the ball over less, making better decisions, improving the shot more, getting teammates involved, dealing with the double teams that NBA playoffs bring you. He's had some real clunkers FG% wise in these playoffs. He's given us far more than we could have asked for this season. So has Thibs. So has the whole team really. Its looking grim, but there still are games to be played and I feel that the Bulls can win games against this team. They are playing a juggernaut right now. This Heat team is scary and will get nothing but scarier going forward.
I am just observing that the fans get really harsh towards our players if they go through a rough patch is all. I tend to think the players have their strengths and weaknesses and the idea is to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses...
Very good point KK4E. Derrick is just 22! Twenty-two, lol. And this is Thibs first year as a head coach. We will be fine in the future. May take some hard losses, but eventually Derrick will carry us to a championship if he doesnt get injured along the way. I am as dissappointed as all of you! But, hey, get us a good SG and will be fine.
To the OP, I don't know that Bulls' fans are much different than other fans. Let's face it, it's a "what have you done for me lately" world. Hit a rough patch, get a hard time...particularly if you're paid a lot.
The Bulls will win nothing with this team as long as the big 3 exist in Miami. If I'm Derrick I'm on the phone with Dwight building the relationship for 2012. The Bulls should offer any combination of players sans Derrick for Dwight. That is what it will take to beat the heat.
There's a lot going on in this thread. If I had to summarize, I think, it would be "we're disappointed," which is fair sentiment. Jay, I think the truth is much closer to that expressed by Bullnuts. The Heat will get better. We know Miami is a destination city in a way that Chicago isn't. How are the Bulls going to get over the hump? I don't think Brewer is ever going to be the two guard that gets you there. He's put together a good string of games but the body of work just isn't there. We need another alpha, and were stuck hoping he becomes a beta. Deng and Boozer are only getting older. I'm still holding out hope that Noah will show development. He showed all kinds of moves before his injury that went by the wayside when he missed the extended stretch. Boozer and Noah will also learn how to play better together, but so will James, Wade and Bosh. So we're back to hoping Rose takes another giant leap in his game. That's an awful lot to ask. I mean, he'd have to be Jordan good for the Bulls to really push this Heat team. Or else, we're stuck watching the draft in the hopes that somehow we find the next Ginobili. It's tough and there's no way to spin it. The Bulls are officially in the territory where teams make all types of stupid moves trying to get over the hump. Bottom line: I think we're allowed some time to call our team crap, rip apart the coaching, and criticize are front office for being to cautious. Then we take a step back, regroup, and move on to the next season. One last note. How much could the team have used Stephen Jackson this playoff run? The team needs an irrational confidence guy (who isn't afraid to shoot regardless of the situation) and an enforcer. Jackson would have been the perfect fit and could have made the difference this post season.
I think there will be plenty of time after this series to figure out what it will take to get past Miami. Tom Haberstroh - espn resident heat homer looked at how mia, ok, and chicago can improve. I liked CHI's opitions a lot better than Miamis. http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=haberstroh_tom&id=6586559
Can you actually post the article? I fuckin hate not having insider lol. But I do understand wat Denny is talking about. There are a lot of (imo bandwagon) fans ripping the team for the losses. Im disappointed, but Im goin with the Bulls to win it all until Miami wins that 4th game. I still hold out hope that we can go on a Blackhawks type run and force 7 games (and hopefully win). I do think SJax would have made a big difference for us, but hindsight is always 20/20. Lets just hope we can make smart moves in the offseason to bring in a 2 that can create his own shot because thats the real thing thats killing us, the fact that NO ONE besides derrick can create a shot.
It's spilled over into the press. This Sun Times article basically rips Rose. http://www.suntimes.com/5595453-599/derrick-rose-must-bring-his-mvp-game-against-lebron-heat.html
I think this pretty much sums everything up. I like Brewer a lot, but agree with SST. He's been in the league five years now, and he is what he is. He can play D with the best of them though. He's easy to root for. This team is really, really, good. Probably not consistent championship-winning good, but pretty close. From that conclusion I have the following opinions: 1). If we can swing a trade for an alpha-guy like Dwight Howard or Pau Gasol, we should probably do it, as long as we keep Rose. 2). If we can't do 1, we're best off making improvements on the margin. We won't be a dynasty, but a fringe team usually wins a championship once or twice a decade (Pistons, D-Wade led Heat, etc). 3). Somewhat related to 2, we should be careful not to tinker ourselves out of contention. The Cavs did this with Bron, the Magic with Dwight Howard and so did the Bob Whitsett TrailBlazers. As a fan, this is a hard reality to accept, but if you're not over the hump, I'd rather be the 90's Jazz or the naughts Mavericks than those teams. 4). We all want championships, but I think it's fine to be happy to have a really good team that plays hard and is easy to root for. It took us more than ten years to get here, so I'm loathe to quickly dismiss what we have.
Are you sure you feel this way? I don't think I have an opinion, and I feel like I won't have one for another couple of years.
My thoughts on Brewer are that: He's big. Big enough to play some SF even. He's not going to stretch defenses with his 3pt range, but he's a very efficient scorer because he has a knack for getting open near the rim. He is a starting caliber SG. He put up about 13ppg for Utah in that role. He can't manufacture his own shots. He's not a quality 2nd ballhandler. Playing him along with Deng, we don't have playmakers at the wing positions. He has less a 3pt shot than Bogans.
Brewer is a fantastic backup that absolutely should be in our plans going forward. Not clear that Bogans has much left in the tank.
It's painfully obvious to me how much you miss when it comes to breaking down a basketball team. Rose isn't the same player he was in the first series against the Pacers, he's the opposite. Against the Pacers, he struggled for 3 and a half quarters and was lights out for the last 5 minutes of the game and won. Against the heat, he has been solid to great for the first 3 and a half quarters and average to bad for the last 5 minutes and lost. The numbers might look the same in the end (except for the winning and losing, which ought to be a big hint btw) but how he gets there is night and day different. Boozer has picked it up lately with scoring and no surprise, you think he is impressive. He had a 7 point game in game 2 remember. He is also playing more minutes, so his scoring should go up. His defense is still terrible. The bulls are just better at hiding, mostly because they have not tried to play him with Korver at the same time. This team is one play from being tied 2-2. Think about that. They are probably a half dozen plays from being up 3-1. And this is the conference finals. Thibs has made adjustments, like less Korver. I'll break it down more after the game....
