Even with reigning NBA MVP Derrick Rose off the court twice in the second half because of foul trouble, the Chicago Bulls' offense never slowed down, thanks to the efforts of reserve guard C.J. Watson. Rose had 19 points and eight assists, and the Bulls earned a 108-98 victory over the Sacramento Kings on Thursday night.
Rose isn't dominating like last season. If he plays at this level all season, he won't be in the MVP discussion. Give us that MVP Rose and it hides the deficiencies of the rest of the team.
Is this team perplexing? It seems to me that with the exception of Rip Hamilton and the health of Boozer, Noah and Rose we pretty much know what we have here. Perhaps there's some internal improvement from Brewer or Gibson that hasn't showed yet, but this years' team looks a lot like last years'. It seems to me that the way people view this team is largely derived from how they viewed last season. There are two larger contexts that you can frame last season with, both of which probably have some truth in them. The first is that the Heat are just too damn talented with two of the biggest stars in the game and a top twenty player in Bosh. This is the ESPN mindset. Using this framework, the Bulls have little chance at beating the Heat and the Mavs victory was an outlier, because they got unexpectedly hot. Lebron James choked in the finals. The second framework incorporates injuries and wear and tear. The Bulls ran into a brutal first round series last year, largely because Indiana refused to fire its coach. Derrick Rose, Boozer and Noah all sustained injuries and, by the time the Bulls met the Heat, they were already worn down. The Heat meanwhile got extremely lucky with a soft as tissue paper Knicks matchup and a potentially brutal Celtics matchup that was eliminated when Rondo got injured in his first game in the series. The Heat were almost completely injury free, sans a season long shot to Udonis Haslem, and were the more healthy team in the matchup verses the Bulls. By the time the Heat encountered the Mavs they were already worn down. LJ didn't so much choke as he was drained, and the Mavericks were fresh only have played one semi-physical team, the Lakers. * * * * * Which is it, or how much of each is it? That's going to decide who wins the championship this season.
This team doesn't confuse me either. All the players look very familiar in the way they're playing. A few thoughts: 1). There's rust. 2). Derrick looks like he's trying to involve the offense more, but it doesn't feel natural yet. Even though this results in some offensive dysfunctionality right now, in the long term this an important goal and needs to be given its proper time to work. 3). It looks like at times we're trying to use some offensive schemes that don't rely on Derrick having the ball as much. See my point above. Overall, I think (hope) the story of this season is one where the team (players and coaches), are willing to forego regular season wins in an effort to find an offensive identity that allows our major players to clique and allow the team to find a higher gear come playoff time.
Yeah. I've seen a ton of new sets that I don't remember from last season, most of which involve Rose playing in a more traditional capacity. I hope that Thibodeau continues to work with these sets even if they are not initially successful. The Rose on the ball p&r is great bread and butter, he is not going to survive the season if he continues to play like he did last night. One potentially accurate criticism of Thibodeau which we'll have to watch for is that he may lack an unyielding belief in an offensive philosophy. I keep going back to those two early loses against the New York Knicks last season where the Bulls got blitzed on the defensive end because they were doubling bigmen and then not rotating out to three point shooters quickly. Thibodeau was willing to lose games because he knew that eventually the Bulls would tighten their defensive rotations. And the Bulls were eventually able to shut down opponents at the three point line even when they doubled in the post. I wonder if Thibodeau has the same commitment to offensive schemes that he has to defensive schemes. It seems that Thibodeau sticks with his offensive sets when they work but that the Bulls revert back to Rose freelancing off on the ball screens whenever times get tough. In a perfect world, I think, a coach would demand just as much out of offensive execution as defensive execution and would take a record be damned approach to coaching the club through the regular season.
I thought this was a very insightful post. Thibs on offense is still a bit of a mystery to me. Really, I have no idea what kind of attitude or philosophy he has towards that side of the ball, if any. It does look like we're trying to do some things differently this year, and most of the time it hasn't worked very well....but that's okay. It's a worthy goal for the entire season. Sitting back and watching Derrick do his dance can get you pretty far, but I'd guess we'll be relegated to perpetual 2nd round/ECF exits year after year if we can't do better than that. And we can do better than that. Every player in our starting lineup is a plus offensively, so there's no reason we can't be one of the best offensive teams in the league.
SST, may I suggest you take your thoughts about offensive identity and make a new thread about them. This is a misleading thread title that hides the gem inside. I suppose I could change the thread title, but it's your observation, so go for it. I've only watched part of the Sacramento game so far. But I have no doubt that your core observation is right, and that Thibs is not as confident in an offensive scheme as he is in his defensive ones. He's willing to try new things, but for a team that must win as a team, does that provide the kind of absolute commitment to team play offensively as it does on defense? Probably not. Then again, not even the Triangle was in operation all the time, and you had to rely on Michael or Scottie or some X-factor like Bobby Hansen to improvise and make the difference. So, I would say that having the offensive scheme set as hard as the defense will help, but it can't be everything. The individual players are going to have to provide the difference to win it all.
