Guess who played all but the last 1:45 of the forth quarter? Come on, guess? And then write another long post about how Thibodeau is a coaching genius.
Our 2nd unit started out the year sucking ass. Now with Rose and Jimmy out, and other players' minutes reduced by management edict, those guys that suck ass are key rotation players. What do you expect?
I told you . A 2,000 word essay on how there's totally in no way any reason to worry about Thibodeau's playoff rotations because he's a genius.
Some of us have been worried since preseason. Everything was bet on Rose being MVP and we're just miserable at the wings with DunVP starting, and Kirk, Snell, and McBuckets off the bench. I like Snell and think he's way better than Kirk, but he's way worse than Jimmy. It's so bad they played Mirotic at SF and that wasn't so good. Weak at the wing positions and overly stacked at the PF/C positions. A trade to balance that out didn't happen. Blame Thibs for that.
We're in an era where you can't pin playing time and every decision to the coach anymore. Maybe GarPax is saying to play Hinrich. He's Mr Bull after all. Just last season the org was choosing to announce him last at home games. GarPax likes to control the minutes. Jen Swanson likes to control the minutes. Playing time is not just a Thibs thing anymore. And we just got done talking about how regular season games might not matter anymore anyway. That being said, the only thing I can think of is a locker room / organizational management thing. He's a vet. He's Mr Bull. The org thought enough of him to give him a larger deal this year and a player option for next year. Perhaps you have to let him play his way out of the lineup in regular season games. Is it feasible to just banish Mr Bull to the very, very end of the bench?. That makes management look really stupid for giving him a player option and both the owner and exec VP both love the guy. Personally, I would have been happy to be done with Hinrich a decade ago. He's always been overpaid and always been given more attention and mental energy than his play dictates. He should not be Mr Bull. But, Paxson decided he would be Mr Bull, so he is. Or, maybe its just a mistake by Thibs. Nobody is perfect of course. You just hope you have a guy making the calls that makes more correct decisions than incorrect ones at a rate that is better than the average NBA coach. Personally, I saw a lot of players looking like ass down the stretch of the game. Brooks could not hit a shot. Noah was turning the ball over on bad passes. Niko was committing dumb fouls and letting guys breeze to the hoop when he should have been helping. Dunleavy was looking like a clown. Hinrich looked really rough. Snell had a brutal game. And the Pistons were getting lots of open looks and shooting lights out. You know who did look pretty good? Taj Gibson. ---- At the end of the day, a NBA head coach is just a NBA head coach. If he doesn't get the most out of his guys, the team stops winning and the guys don't play hard for him any more, he'll be gone. That's how it works. Also, with Thibs, who doesn't suffer fools, I'm sure he lets GarPax know who has the ring and who doesn't and he knows he'll get another job and he's a prickly pear to begin with. That doesn't endear him to management. He does make management look pretty good as well most of the time. Bulls struck out on Melo and had to settle for Gasol. Under Thibs, he's a starter in the all-star game. Jimmy Butler is looking real good under Thibs. Niko is looking good under Thibs. I'm sure they would have liked the McDermott story to turn out a little different this season, but rookies are rookies and Thibs hasn't banished him. His 6.2 PER might have something to do with it as well.
DunVP scored 1 point in Q3. He played all 12 minutes. got 4 minutes of rest to start Q4, then came in and missed three shots. Aside from Taj, everyone off the bench combined shot 4-15. No hot hands to be found, anywhere when it counted. Mirotic played the first 7 minutes of Q4 missing his only shot, a 3pt attempt, and committed a foul. He had another two shots blocked. Brooks and Hinrich scored early in Q4 and that kept us in the game briefly. After tying the game at 83, the Bulls were out scored 17-0 and then it was garbage time. The only guy not given a chance was Moore. Everyone else was given a chance to get hot or make a game changing play of some kind. The Pistons exposed all of our flaws. It's a terrible match up for us. Young energetic athletic bigs have killed us all season. Their strength and depth at the wing positions is something we have no answer for. Even the elderly Prince had a favorable match up against DunVP. We really need Jimmy back, more than Taj. We might have defended one of the wing spots for 40 minutes and he may have gotten us easy FT points once the Pistons were in the penalty early.
