Game notes - Apr 1, 2008
Celtics @ Bulls
- Gooden is injured so I get the opportunity to watch Tyrus Thomas some more and hopefully he’ll show again that he can produce when given the minutes
- there’s still no one on the Bulls able to throw an alley oop pass
- hey, Bulls fans, does watching Tyson Chandler play well for the Hornets hurt ? Well, you gonna be in a world of pain as soon as Tyrus is traded to a team that knows how to develop and use his talents (besides being very athletic - which everyone knows about him, he has very good hands, good passing skills, and now, apparently, can hit the open J with some consistence)
- Deng keeps jumping on every single Paul Pierce pump fake. At one point not even Pierce was expecting him to bite on the fake anymore, cause he wasn’t ready to force the contact in order to get the call. Otherwise, he could have put more fouls on Deng and gotten to the FT line a few more times.
- Hinrich is still one of the dumbest PG in the league and at his age there’s no hope on him ever improving on that. His 18-20 feet off the dribble pull up jumpers on the fast break drive me crazy. How some (many) Bulls fans used to put his name in the same sentence as Nash or Stockton is beyond me.
- you can add Rondo to the list of players who abused Hinrich. Defense was supposed to be his thing, right ?
- Rondo has really good court vision. The more I see him, the more I like him. With all the talk about KG in the race for MVP and Paul Pierce’s transformation, Rondo’s part in the Celtics success seems to be a little underrated.
- Noah could do a better job recognizing when he’s defended by a shorter player so he can take advantage of the mismatch. He could have scored with ease a few times if he would have just shot a baby hook over the shorter defender. He had good position, he just wasn’t thinking about scoring, wanted to pass the ball. Altruism is a noble thing, but sometimes you have to look to score in order to help your team.
- Big Baby sporting a mohawk ? Better than Brad Miller with cornrows
- well, apparently Duhon can throw an alley oop pass. Too bad he can’t do much of anything else. Especially shoot the ball.
- when I’m opening my own restaurant, I’ll be serving Deng Pudding. It’s gonna be so soft and fluffy and after 3 quarters (of an hour) it will just disappear from your plate
- Hinrich hustles a lot on D. He even won a jump ball against KG. Too bad this does NOT make up for his dumb decisions on offense. Not on an offense starved team such as the Bulls. That’s the reason I’ve always been saying that Hinrich would best fit next to a superstar SG/SF with play making skills. A Lebron, Kobe or Wade would help his game a lot. So would a coach telling him what he’s supposed to do and what he’s not supposed to do.
- the Bulls play their young players substantial minutes and they stay close to the best team in the league ? Big surprise. NOT !!!
- when Hughes is about to take a bad shot, you can sense it in the air. Maybe it’s the stench of his decision making. It precedes the sound of the ball clanking on the rim just like lightning precedes thunder.
- Celtics’ announcers are just as homeristic and annoying as the Bulls’
- Tyrus keeps hitting those mid range J’s. Skiles must have been right when he implied Tyrus wasn’t really working on his jump shots. Right out of his fucking mind !!! And just as I’m typing this, he hits a nice turn around J on the baseline. Back to Skiles, some people decried him getting fired on Christmas. For as much of a jerk he’s been with Tyrus and others, this was nowhere near enough. Him getting fired on Christmas, then getting raped by the Grinch and then dumped by Chris Duhon would be closer to what he deserved.
- you can see Tyrus is not used to playing this many minutes. At the end of the 3rd he’s obviously tired and needs a breather. Too bad his coach (same one who’s responsible for keeping him too much on the bench) can’t see that
- Aaron Gray is the quintessential big slow white lug. He’s part of a long line of centers who’s only “talent” was being tall. Dave Corzine, Will Perdue, Luc Longley and Greg Ostertag watch him and reminisce of their young days.
- Sam Cassell couldn’t wait to get into the game and put up a few shots. He may be old, but he knows his trade. If, as expected, the Celtics make the finals, he’s able to win them a game, and it could make all the difference if the series gets to game 7.
- less than 7 minutes left, 8 points difference. Who’d have thought that the league leading Celtics would have trouble with a team that used to be scrappy, but now is just crappy ? Again, for all non believers, this happening when Tyrus is getting minutes is NOT a coincidence.
- Hinrich loves to dribble. I think he would have been happier on an And1 team. Although I don’t know why they’d want him, since his dribbling is not spectacular (like, say, Skip to my Lou’s), just boring.
- A little over a minute left and 10 points difference and Doc pulls his starters. If I was on the Bulls, I’d be pissed. That’s like saying “You morons can’t put up 10 points in 1 minute even if you were all alone in a gym”. Too bad he was actually right: the Bulls looked like they were past their bed time and couldn’t wait to go home.
- In the end, they were right. Why fight for a win ? To risk having Boylan the Clown as a coach next season too ? To mess up whatever chances the Bulls have for a high lottery pick ? No, thank you. I’ll take the L and be on my way. Which, for some of them, will be the way out of town. And it might turn out to be better for them to play for an organization who actually has a clue about managing its players.
- One last thing: Tyrus was the player of the game for the Bulls with 24 points on 9-16 FG and 6-7 FT, 7 rebounds, 0 assists (a little weird since he was passing the ball well), 1 steal and 2 turnovers in 37:22 minutes. He was also one in just 3 Bulls players who scored in double figures against the Celtics tight D. The other 2 were Nocioni with 19 points on 5-9 FG and Deng with a pathetic 10 points on 3-9 FG. Yeah, this is the guy Paxson wouldn’t trade for Kobe.
