Nick Friedell @NickFriedell Butler has another monster night: 31 points, 10 rebounds and an assist in 40 minutes. Mirotic with career high 27 points. 6/6 from 3-pt land
Impressive win. Felt like old times. It's very interesting that Niko kept Randolph off the court and not the other way around.
Just goes to show what two potential 30 point scorers do for a team. It kinda sucked seeing 18 guys play, but only 3 have good games.
-- And then Mirotic fouled John Leurer out of the game. That was a pretty darn impressive performance all in all. I also thought it was interesting to see a non-Bulls inside-out team with centerish bigs getting skewered by a stretch four. It's like Thib's Christmas wish come true was the opportunity to banish the ghost of Golden State past. Mirotic's 27 points represent a better career high than Gibson has put up in six seasons. I think that means something but I'm not sure what. My other takeaways, --I think it's difficult to make the argument that Thibodeau is primarily concerned about defense when formulating lineups. He kept Aaron Brooks in the game when Ben Udrih was scoring on Brooks at will, presumably because he was hot and was helping keep the tempo up. --Why does Kirk keep making egregious mistakes on defense late in close games? The Memphis announcers went in hard on him after he fouled Mike Conley behind the 3pt line, when Conley was shooting like 3-14 at the time.
My big takeaway from Mirotic's game is that he's going to make a few all-star games in his career. I hope they're with the Bulls. He's the ideal PF in today's NBA. I've actually grown to like it when one of our bigs is out, because it allows the team to use lineups it wouldn't normally be able to when they're all healthy. I'm beginning to think Gasol/Noah and Gibson/Mirotic is the worst possible combo to use on the floor but I haven't looked at lineup data to verify my suspicions. I don't think Thibs has ever had an irrational preference for defense over offense in his choice of players or lineups. Only in the way he emphasizes his defensive schemes. It's one of the reasons he's a better coach than the many other gritty, defense-first coaches that have eventually flamed out. I remember listening to Jeff Van Gundy on a podcast once and he said that the Bulls' coaching staff worked as hard as any team he knew of to try and create ways to score points. I think Kirk is just unclutch. Some players have personalities that cause them to choke in important situations. Others seem to be the exact opposite. Jimmy is clutch. So is Noah. So is Derrick. I suspect Aaron Brooks is too, but I'm not sure. Hinrich's never been clutch. Neither was Boozer. He always did stupid stuff at the end of games.
Nick Friedell @NickFriedell Noah on Mirotic: "I think this guy's the real deal. And I think that he's just getting better every game and that's big for us."
I ran across this WWW page this morning. Interesting. http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics/_/order/false McMustache is 6th worst in PER in the entire NBA, qualified players. Snell is 9th. Kirk is 32nd. This means there are 300+ players in the league who play at least 6 MPG who have a higher PER. His PER 8.2. Dunleavy is next at #117. Mitotic needs to stay healthy and he'll win ROY.
McDermott is a shooter-scorer and not much of a defender so PER has more relevance for him than some others. Yeah, it was a rough ride for McDermott.
Jimmy Butler's 31 points, Nikola Mirotic's 6 3s lead Bulls over Grizzlies Chicago rookie Nikola Mirotic left the locker room before the media could hear about his perfect shooting night from outside the arc. The rest of the Bulls were willing to speak up in praising the reserve forward. Mirotic scored a career-best 27 points, converting all six of his 3-pointers on Friday night. That, coupled with 31 points from Jimmy Butler, helped the Bulls beat the Grizzlies 103-97 on Friday night, snapping Memphis' six-game winning streak. Read more http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400578681
