That is why MDJ needs to play with the second unit. Doug brings energy to the first team, and MDJ will bring veteran leadership to the second unit. All we have in dependable scoring is Gibson. Ya second unit stinks so far.
Mirotic 1-7...two rebounds, but I will give him this...he almost had many more rebounds. He needs to bulk up keep the effort up on the boards. Gasol, Rose, Butler, had good games. McDermott 8 rebounds, 3 assists. 1 block Gasol, Mirotic, 3 blocks each!
I think we need to start McBuckets and play him no matter what. Well... the only reason to stop is if he proves to be the second coming of Adam Morrison. I also think a lot of plays need to be drawn up for him, even ISOs. We will manage to win a lot of regular season games regardless. What matters is preparation for the playoffs.
Doug will get minutes every now and then, hate to reiterate the same point I've made before, but Thibs is going to ride his vets again, even if Doug is beasting it up in his limited minutes.
Also, on those ISO plays, if the offense is stagnant and we're below 14 seconds on the shot-clock, running an ISO Doug play could bail us out, especially against another teams bench.
Gasol, Butler lead Bulls over Bucks, 91-85 Pau Gasol scored 20 points, Jimmy Butler added 18 and the Chicago Bulls picked up their first win in three preseason games, beating the cold-shooting Milwaukee Bucks 91-85 on Saturday night. read more http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400583953
A lot of this is all the inexperience mistakes Mirotic is making. But if we're being honest, a lot of it is Aaron Brooks has been downright lousy. I really hope that GarPaxThibs troll the waiver wire for a player who can get them in their offense, play a little defense and score occasionally. You should be able to find someone like that in the D League.
Looks to me like Snell is going to be odd man out and Thibs is going to consistently play three point guards.
"a player who can get them in their offense, play a little defense and score occasionally." That's Hinrich's job. It seems like if you initiate offense and get the ball to people in position to score, everyone's stats would be good. Brooks is a career 3.4 APG guy. I think he's here to shoot, not play PG. 3.4 APG is Ben Gordon at SG kind of APG.
I think Thibs is much better at realizing that his vets need a break to stay durable during the season. However, last year, big minutes yet again fell on the vets. DJ Augustine, Dunleavy, Butler (not a vet ofc, so I'll give him that) and Noah all played big minutes last year. Last year I couldn't help but think Snell or Jimmer could give us an extra boost of energy, even if they had limited experience. By the time we met Washington last year, our vets seemed like zombies. Noah had a lingering injury that followed him into the post season last year. To be fair, trading Deng messed up our depth at the time so I can see why minutes weren't distributed effectively.
After Deng was traded, the rotation was pretty much Hinrich, Augustin, Butler, Dunleavy, Boozer, Gibson and Noah with Mohammed and Snell playing a few minutes as well. Snell was given an opportunity to show what he could do in December-February when he averaged over 20mpg. Thibodeau didn't like what he saw and pretty much used Snell only in mop-up duty after that. In other words, down the stretch and in the playoffs, Thibodeau didn't not play Snell because Snell was a rookie, he didn't play Snell because he had concluded that Snell wasn't ready. As for Fredette, Mike James, Teague, Murphy, Shengelia and Varnado, I can't hardly blame Thibodeau for keeping them on the bench.
