Link:</p> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>This obviously has not been a good stretch for the Bulls, who have spent most of the time playing awful and the rest trying to figure out why. It's not much of an existence. There haven't been any definitive answers, but things are getting very deep. On a board in the Bulls' locker room before Thursday night's game, someone had written, "The mental is to the physical what 2 is to 1." "Sounds like Zen, something like Phil Jackson would put up there," guard Ben Gordon said, smiling. It does sound like something the Coach to the Stars would say, but the down-to-earth meaning was that the Bulls needed to get their heads out of their duffel bags, or something like that. To explain why they played with more heart and energy Thursday is to be able to explain why they didn't during the 0-4 start. The hangover from the Kobe Bryant trade rumors? A possibility. They got old fast? Nope, nothing like that. And they didn't suddenly lose their veteran leadership. The mental game is more important than the physical? That works. "Often, I've found in my own experiences in dealing with people that if somebody has a really good heart, it probably means they're pretty introspective," coach Scott Skiles said. "They do a lot of thinking and when things go wrong, they can dwell on them a little too much and look at themselves and beat themselves up and those kinds of things, which immediately manifests itself in not performing up to your capabilities.</div></p> Sometimes it takes an outside observer to make a really keen observation. Like Skiles commenting on what it must be like for people with a heart. </p> But seriously, this was some pretty nice coaching if it got them to play like this!</p>
Interesting. A theme I'm enjoying following is the evolution of Skiles as his team grows up (or tries to).</p> Enjoyable win last night.</p>
Like I said in another thread...</p> Good thing Sheed tired himself out scoring at will right up until the last couple of shots.</p> A great win, tho, fully agreed.</p> </p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> Like I said in another thread...</p> Good thing Sheed tired himself out scoring at will right up until the last couple of shots.</p> A great win, tho, fully agreed.</p> </div></p> Tyrus' man defense concerns me. It's counter-intuitive, but he might be better against stout PFs (witness how well he fronted the post against Rasheed) with post games rather than slight PFs that like to shoot jumpers. Against PFs with range he tends to get lost, so they get both open jumpers and free cuts to the basket.</p> Quite a few opposing PFs have had very good games against him - Yi, Rasheed, Bargnani in preseason.</p> </p> </p> </p>