Hawks at Bulls 2/20/12

Rose returns and has a great game. 23 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists.

Boozer played just 30 minutes and had 4 fouls. 16 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist.

Deng continues his funk going 4-15, but grabbed 9 boards to go with 4 assists.

Every player on the Bulls bench had a +/- that was minus.

Hinrich played, we won. End of story?

 

The story for me was the one minute from Omer. You can't run Joakim forty minutes on a consistent basis. KC Johnson thought it was because the matchups were bad for him because the Hawks were going small. Zaza Puchulia played 36 minutes though. I wonder if there is some trade in the works. Otherwise, I wonder what Thibodeau can do to get Omer out of this funk -- the Bulls are going to need him.

 

With the Bulls shooting .386 from the field, Thibs may have just relied on Noah's offensive rebounding skill more than usual.

 

We won. By 21 points. Yes, end of story.

 

Wow. Hinrich looks through to me. He has a PER of 7.3. 4.9 PPG on 33% shooting and 24% from 3. ORtg is 84, DRtg is 102.

He hasn't had a PER of 15 since 06-07.

 

I have no idea what the Lakers are about. It's like in community theater when some actor asks, "What's my motivation?" What are they trying to accomplish?

Better roster; cheaper roster? Both probably. But how concerned are they about their luxury hit, and how concerned are they about getting better? No one really has any idea.

To add to the comments about the Hawks game. I think it was the first game I've seen from the Bulls where they looked thoroughly uninterested in what Thibs had to say . . . that's not a great sign. Hope I'm wrong, obviously, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's not long as a Bulls coach -- maybe one more season.

 

I think and hope Thibs is coach for life. The things he does wrong are fairly easy to correct. And as long as he's got Rose, the Xs and Os on offense don't matter so much.

He's winning with D Leaguers playing significant minutes.

 

My comment was in no way connected to Thib's coaching abilities, so yes, I too hope Thibs is coach for life. Our biggest complaints would be connected to what sometimes seems like of commitment to an offensive philosophy, right? I like the offense he runs though well enough. He has done a relatively good job at developing talent. His defensive schemes are beyond reproach. You could absolutely win a championship with him.

If things go bad it's going to be for the reason things most often go bad -- that the relationship between players and their coach often gets burned out over the course of a couple of years.

 

I get good vibes from Thibs. Players who played for him don't say anything negative about him. Supposedly, he and Doc are really good friends and talk on the phone a lot.

Thibs' biggest problem might be the team is too deep. Play Boozer the kind of minutes he should get (max contract, all star, vet), and there's little time for Taj and Asik.

He seems satisfied to let Rose play 1-on-5, which is probably what management wants. Otherwise he demands the players fit his vision, rather than crafting a vision to maximize the strengths of his players.

Noah seems to have a decent post game, but I see him handling the ball mostly out of his range from the basket. Same for Boozer, which is why he's shooting so much outside. But those guys' priority in our scheme is to set picks for Rose, even near half court.

I'd like to see the Stockton/Malone kind of puck and roll I envisioned when we signed Boozer. And some sort of two man game not involving Rose. Mainly so when LeBron shuts down Rose in the playoffs, we have a workable plan B.

Jerry Sloan had the reputation as a defensive coach. Yet when he had superb talent that wasn't so good defensively, the team played to their strengths and won lots of games.

I think Thibs will make the adjustments. He's too big, too fast, too strong (too smart) to not adjust.

$.02