Bulls might be #1 in the NBA on offense. Big foam finger #1 for real (for the first time in a long time)
Bulls shot 51% Gibson 22 Gasol 21 Brooks, Rose 13 Hinrich, Mcdermott 12 Bulls 47-38 rebounding edge Gasol 11 Gibson 8 Mirotic 7 Brooks 6 assists Rose 5 Noah 3 blocks Rose 2 steals
Yeah. Tonight was great, but the Knicks roster really does look terrible from top to bottom sans Melo. It's reassuring that we kicked their asses, but Friday might be a better litmus test for where the team is at.
Our starting unit didn't stop Amare at all. By the time he'd rested, the Knicks' 2nd unit had already handed us the game. Dalembert looked very good in Q1, too.
By the end of the night Amare had a fairly pedestrian game. One of the more subtle takeaway points from this game is that the new faces looked pretty acclimated to the defensive schemes. The Knicks got off to a decent start on offense, but they did that by hitting long 2's......which is a feature of a defensive scheme, not a bug. Their luck ran out as the game went on.
Lack of talent . . . and they're out of shape, implementing a new system, and have a rookie coach. That's going to be the easiest game the Bulls have all season. Still, I liked Thib's rotations; the rooks played well, especially McDermott; and it looks like Thibs has somehow turned Aaron Brooks in the span of 8 preseason games from someone who may not have deserved a roster spot in the NBA back into a player who looks like he could be a marginal starter. Oh and how 'bout Pau? Derrick Rose got another game under his belt. These are all good things.
Yeah the Knicks suck, so it'd be premature to conclude too much from this game. I mean it's great that Taj and Pau were able to take it to Cole Aldrich but that doesn't signal much for what we'll be able to do in important games. Anyways, I think these are the between-the-lines good things to take from this game: 1). I too liked the rotations. Nobody got overworked and I think Thibs did a good job of blending different lineups together. Lots of Gasol/Taj, Noah/Taj, Taj/Mirotic. I also noticed he's trying to stagger the rookies apart. It looked to me like Thibs settled on his starting lineup early on due to experience/politics, but has arranged his rotations to overcome its shortcomings. I can live with that. 2). Rose looked good. Regardless of his statistical output he moved well and didn't look very rusty. I watch Bulls games at a bar down the street from me, and the TV usually doesn't have any volume turned on. The biggest benefit of watching the game this way is that your opinions aren't influenced by the talking points on TV and its easier to get absorbed into what a players doing when he doesn't have the ball. After the first half I had no idea what Rose's statistical output was but I was relieved because I thought he looked very good in his movements and decision-making. I was surprised when some blip came on about his slow start.....it didn't sink in to me at all. 3). The rooks looked solid. Not great, but they carried themselves like honest-to-god NBA players. They were good enough that you can imagine them doing interesting things this year. Mirotic in particular is so damn appealing because you can tell his all around game is there, he just hasn't quite had a chance to put it together yet. Won't be surprised at all if he has some monster games this year. He's a genuine mismatch with his size and skills. 4). Did anyone else notice the persistence with which the Bulls pushed the tempo? I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else, but Rose and Brooks both played like they were given explicit directions to attack the basket after a miss no-matter-what. Sometimes they even played a fast-break after a make.
With :52 left in Q1, the Knicks were up by 2 points 20-18 and hadn't trailed all game. The ended up behind by the end of the quarter 24-20. They were up 16-11 when Amare went out for Quincy Acy. The Knicks bench gave the Bulls a 10 point lead after 5 minutes in Q2. They're terrible.
Once Amare and Dalembert left the game together, that was it. They both cannot play 30 plus minutes. Dalembert had 3 blocks. Amare looked dominate early on, then faded as the game went on.
Derrick Rose scores 13 as Bulls ruin Derek Fisher's coaching debut Derrick Rose spent way too much time sitting and watching the last two seasons. Yet he wasn't bummed at all about playing just 7 minutes of the second half in his long-awaited return. "It was real fun being on the bench," he said, "being able to laugh, talk basketball to your teammates whenever they come back to the sideline." Not to mention check out a team he says can be "scary." Pau Gasol had 21 points and 11 rebounds in his Chicago debut, Rose scored 13 points and the Bulls spoiled Derek Fisher's first game as an NBA coach by beating the New York Knicks 104-80 on Wednesday night. Read more http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400578302
Ha. It's an impossible task trying to keep the game in perspective. Barganani and Calderon were injured too. As to your point, I'm wondering if we might see Taj dominate consistently this season. On my first watch, I thought Mirotic looked pretty lost on offense. He spent a good deal of time parked at the three point line. I watched the second quarter again, and the thing is, I think he's parked there by design. He was basically freezing Quincy Acy way above the free throw line and giving Taj one-on-one matchups without worry of a double team. That's a big part of why Taj was killing it. The backup bigs work really well together. Taj is going to get one-on-one matchups all season long.
I think you can make an argument that the second unit built for Taj. That backup crew has four players who can hit a three. And if opposing teams can't send double teams, and he's playing fresh against backup centers and power forwards . . . . that's free cheese. It kind of puts Taj's pride about the bench beating the starters in context.
I was thinking to myself during the Knicks game: "What frontcourt players are better at creating their own offense than Taj?" I don't ask that to be cute.....I think it's a legit question. My guess is the list mostly consists of All-star, big contract types. Whenever he gets the ball in isolation good things always seem to happen. I think you're right about the second unit being designed to showcase him. Remember the first preseason game when he jacked up every shot he could take? I think in hindsight he wasn't trying to be a ballhog.....he was following orders. Ditto for Brooks. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Thibs figured they'd have to be comfortable taking lots of shots for the second unit to establish itself, which is why they were both going bombs away.
