Game Thread Playoffs - First Round Game 04 - Bulls @ Bucks

And rose got beat. We lose.

 

Okay, all of you people ready to put Thibs in the HOF, what's the thought process behind running the last play of the game with Taj, Noah and Hinrich on the court, instead of calling a time out and making substitutions? Wasn't it completely predictable that the Bucks would smother Rose? Please explain to me how Thibs wasn't the person responsible for this loss.

 

I don't think the Bulls had a timeout to call.

 

And by the way, Thibs played Mirotic at power forward for 3:17 in the second quarter and the Bulls were +9; and 3:55 in fourth quarter and the Bulls were +8.

The Bulls were + 17 in the little over seven minutes when Niko played power forward.

Broken record. Broken record. Broken record.

 

The national telecast was showing one more timeout.

 

The Bulls used their full 3 timeouts allowed in Q4.

At 9:02 Down 8
At 4:33 Down 8
At 1:42 Down 6 (right after Mayo hit a 3)

 

The NBA rules are no team is allowed more than 3 timeouts in Q4.

 

Thibs played Niko at PF for the final 4:33 of the game.

During that time, Niko committed a foul and missed his only shot, a 3pt attempt.

 

If Rose continues to shoot 5-13, only get to the line twice and have 8 turnovers, the Bulls are not going anywhere. Not to mention the game losing defensive lapse and turnover. That's bad Derrick.

Sloppy, uninspired game. Too many turnovers. Too many open looks. A better team would have blown the Bulls out.

Easy to say play Niko at the 4. Hard to say who to banish to the bench. Based on the play today, I'd say Noah though. He looked done tonight. But, we've seen that he bounces back. Its not like Mirotic was a game changer tonight though either. (yes, he was playing the 3 for much of it) What do you do though, talk to Noah and bench him for game 5? Easy in NBA2K, hard in real life.

Front office is paying 13 million for Noah and 19 million for Rose. Neither played well.

Strong game by Butler.

Bulls in 5 looks like a good bet.

 

I think this is right, though Wikipedia for whatever its worth suggests otherwise.

 

Niko definitely wasn't on the floor for the last :38. But as to the rest its about the lineup. He makes space for Rose, Butler and Pau.

 

Thibs put in his defensive lineup during a Bucks timeout. He certainly drew up a play, or called one, for Rose. The Bulls made Bayless miss. The end of game isolation play for Rose failed when Rose turned it over. The at the other end, Rose got beat by Bayless for the game winner. Rose did not get to the point where he could shoot or kick out to a shooter. That's not Thibs' fault.

Rose pulling up for a 3 at the top of the key against a zone defense had nothing to do with who was the PF.

 

I quote Wikipedia

"In the fourth quarter, each team is limited to a maximum of three timeouts"

 

I don't know about done since we've seem Noah bounce back, but he definitely looked injured. I think there was one play in the fourth quarter where the camera isolated on him jumping for a contested rebound and you could see that he maybe only had a couple inches of lift. He's struggling.

 

Noah played 45 minutes in the 2OT game, last game.

Even in that game he was meh, but got fired up and played solid and quality ball through the end of the game.

This was more of the same, but he never got the juices going.

 

I've heard he's basically playing on one leg and the knee is all but shot.

If that's the case, Bulls have some tough decisions to make.

 

I watched the game on tv. Feed was very bad. Bulls cannot turn the ball over that many times and expect to win.

 

Butler was brilliant. I thought that Dunleavy played well. The rest of the Bulls...not so much.

Noah is shooting .375 in this series. I understand that he's not a scorer, but for a center whose shots all come from inside the paint, that's remarkably bad. He's 0-6 from the FT line. I mean, c'mon. I'm sure his knee is sore, but he's not limping.

Gasol had a reasonable game statistically, but he looked tired to me. I REALLY hope I'm wrong.

Rose had a bad game. The end of the game was just an exclamation point.

 

We had 68 field goal attempts. They had 87.

If we don't turn it over, we blow them out.

We shot 48.5%, they shot 39.1%.

Milwaukee plays a trapping zone. Something like 2-1-2.

The way you beat the zone is shoot over it or pass from side to side. It is difficult to manufacture anything in the lane because they have it packed so tight.

Another way to beat it is to beat them to our front court on offense so they don't have time to get the zone set up.

I don't think it really matters in the end. More talent will win over the long haul of a 7 game series.

I expect we win the next one and rest until the next round starts.

 

If that's not what happens, there's gonna be a collective WTF that will rock the world.