He came out during free throws so it wasn't shoes or something along those lines: 5:13 84-88 Nikola Mirotic shooting foul (JaMychal Green draws the foul) 5:13 JaMychal Green makes free throw 1 of 2 85-88 5:13 85-88 Aaron Brooks enters the game for Tony Snell It was just Thibodeau being Thibdoeau. My patience with the dude is done.
Big minutes and numbers for Mirotic. Check. Hinrich only played 16:46, lowest among guards. Check. Only 5 minutes for McDermott, so I guess that would be internet complain able. Loss. A real bummer. --- 4th game in 5, Bulls were losing the 50/50 balls, nice run against their 2nd stringers in the 4th but poor executing and some strange moves down the stretch. Was there a reason given for pulling Snell in the 4th? Is he on a minutes restriction or just not used to playing that much? I know people get upset when players get heavy minutes, both on the internet and in the front office. Perhaps he just needed a rest. Seemed like it killed the 'mo tho. The tech for 6 guys on the court was poor executing. Poor turnovers and dumb fouls down the stretch as well. Bulls are going to need Butler, Rose and Gibson back to consistently hang with the elite teams. Memphis is a tough unit. This roster right now is pretty laughable.
The Bulls have gone 2-3 over their last 5 games. All 5 against playoff teams. They had a 4th quarter lead in two of the three losses. Without their top two scorers and their 6th man. Realistically, you probably shouldn't expect much more out of a team with 49 points a game missing out of their lineup. How do you think the Hawks would fare without Milsap, Teague and Schroder? Without Milsap, Korver and Carroll, they just lost to the Sixers on Friday. Or the Warriors without Curry, Thompson and Iguodala? Or Cleveland without LeBron, Irving and Thompson? You think Memphis beats us last night without Gasol, Conley and Allen? Any team in the league, remove their top two scorers and their sixth man, and I'll take the team we fielded last night against any of them in a 7-game series.
It killed all of the momentum. A Bulls poster at realgm said Tony had played 19 straight minutes. If true, it is still on Thibs.
Yeah, it was 19 straight minutes. I see no problem with giving the guy a minute's rest. He did have him in the for the final four minutes.
I think its safe to say that last night wasn't Thibs' strongest coaching performance. That being said, I'd also like to hear exactly how this Bulls roster can be expected to beat elite NBA teams consistently. Especially when it seems Brooks isn't going to be Nate / DJ this season. If you are looking to hammer away at the coach for some losses piling up, now would be the opportunity. The losses are coming. Relying on rookies and journeymen usually results in this in the NBA. But, the rookies are playing and Hinrich isn't getting heavy minutes anymore, so the internet should be happy! Personally, I don't like the losing. All we have to do is replace Noah and Gasol with a couple rookies / 2nd year guys and we'd really be seeing some heavy minutes for player development. Let's dump Gasol, Noah, Gibson, Hinrich and Thibs and get a Nerlens Noel type and Coach Mayor! Hot damn, the year on year development of the young players should be enthralling.
This is basically how I feel as well. It's really hard to be missing 3 out of your top 5 guys and not have a hard time winning games. It is what it is. Toronto is struggling more than we are, and we're so far ahead of Milwaukee that I don't see this rough patch affecting our seeding. We'll probably end up with the 3 or 4 seed. That's fine, I guess. As far as I can tell none of the injuries Taj, Jimmy and Derrick are going through are long-term issues (with the possible exception of Derrick), and the rest might actually do those guys some good. If they can all return w/ a week or two left in the season it could help them for a run in the playoffs. And you'd have to figure that at some point, the team will need to call Niko or Snell's number in the playoffs and I feel much better about that scenario now than I did three weeks ago.
