So Thibs played Taj, Mirotic, and Gasol and Milwaukee countered with four guards. The Bulls got leads of 5 or 6, then subbed in Hinrich and company and lost the leads. We couldn't break the game open, and Mr. Q4 didn't help us. We were up 4 after Q3, and lost Q4 by 8, 25-17. We had 74 after Q3, roughly on pace to score 100. Taj looked like the guy who killed it in the playoffs last season. Gasol was solid, but not spectacular. Jimmy is getting paid. Noah better step up in the playoffs, he was outright terrible. DunVP was punked on defense. Mirotic played at SF and even SG as Thibs found spots to use him. He's obviously more potent at PF (or maybe only the month of March?). Milwaukee is a playoff team. Not an easy match up in the end.
Good post! Mirotic was not spectacular. Snell might as well have stayed on the bench. Gibson looked like Taj of old. I was pleased with his play in the first half. Second half, not so much. Winded? Yes we need Noah to be more aggressive during the playoffs. Jimmy will get paid. Gasol was solid. Hinrich may be out for a while. As I said in a post above, we were out rebounded, did not hit our 3's, and missed a lot of FT's. We better not do that in the playoffs.
Yeah, Mirotic had an awful game in terms of turnovers, and poor shooting and rebounding. He's clearly not as comfortable at the three as he is at the four. He's not used to the looks he gets at small forward and the team isn't used to how to find him. I actually think this would have been a solid developmental game in January and February. It was strange to see these coaching decisions in April. Thibodeau had an entire season of opportunities to work Mirotic in at the three. All the sudden its back on the table in April? Like he didn't know he was going to have a minutes crunch along his front line a half year ago? Now someone is going to explain to me how this is all part of some secret plan devised by our genius coach.
He played him at the 3 a lot earlier in the season. He didn't play all that well at the 3 then, either. But I think Thibs is looking to get his best defenders out there and find spots for Mirotic to play, too. I don't see why playing the 3 should affect his game. Lu played there and took outside shots and drove to the hoop when he wanted to. Those things are pretty much Niko's game. But Niko was standing around at the 3pt line a lot last night, and his 3pt shooting hasn't been a strength this season. At the 3, he could post up smaller 3s guarding him. I saw a lot of the time he was being guarded by a really short guard (Bayless) and he never posted up. Not that the Bulls particularly needed him to post up, as it would have clogged the lane for Pau and Taj and Jimmy. What they needed was for him to take and make 3pt shots or drive to the basket (which he did a couple of times). The funny thing about the game was how the Bucks did post up their PG against the smaller Brooks. In spite of this defensive deficiency, we built and maintained leads. Brooks played a lot of minutes, but when he was out our leads disappeared. E'Twaun Moore sucked ass.
