| 18 March 2010
Well the Bulls wore some green jerseys last night in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Unfortunately, it really didn't bring them luck. I do have to give the Bulls credit though, albeit minimal credit. Two nights in a row, they went down by 25 points in the middle quarters. Not good. Two nights in a row, they fought their way back late in the game to make a game of it both nights. That's especially hard to do on the second leg of a back-to-back after exerting so much energy trying to come back against Memphis. But sure enough, the Bulls, after being down 25 in the 2nd quarter, came back in the 4th to make it a 7 point game with 5:30 left in the 4th quarter.
Interestingly enough, the difference in this game came down to the free-throw disparity. There was a point in the game where Dallas had shot 28 free-throws, and the Bulls had only shot 4. In the end, Dallas ended up shooting 33 free-throws, and the Bulls ended up shooting 23. So it did not stay that incredibly uneven the entire game. Dallas ended up sinking 25 of their freethrows, while the Bulls ended up sinking 17. That's 8 points right there, and that's what cost the Bulls the game. And I'll tell you why that was it.
The story of the night has to be the shooting. In the first half, the Bulls were shooting something like 43% to the Mavericks' 61%. In the end, the Bulls shot 52.4% from the field while the Mavericks shot 52.6% from the field. Essentially identical shooting percentages. In fact, the Bulls actually made 2 more field goals than the Mavs and attempted 5 more. And that's why free-throws are key. You can get more buckets, but the free-throw disparity can cancel that out in a heartbeat.
Equally amazing, the Bulls kept pace with the Mavericks on the glass. The Mavs ended up with 37 rebounds to the Bulls 36. The Bulls even had 2 more offensive rebounds than the Mavs...something I would have never ever predicted without Joakim Noah being around, or Taj Gibson being at 50% strength. And that's with Haywood and Dampier taking turns crashing the boards. I ripped into him last night, but I gotta give a lot of credit to Chris Richard, who had 9 rebounds and did a nice job banging down low. This is the type of performance the Bulls want him to provide on a consistent basis. Taj Gibson also had a nice bounce-back performance with 12 points, even though he's battling plantar fasciitis and was listed as questionable.
But how about Acie Law. 7-8 from the field for 22 points and 7-7 from the line. I think he's earned him some minutes in Vinny's wacky rotation. He's much more effective than Kirk Hinrich on the offensive end. To me, it looks like Acie and Kirk should be splitting time playing alongside Derrick Rose. It's time for Kirk's minutes to dwindle a bit and most of his minutes should mostly be used for defensive sequences. Acie has proven that he can attack the basket, shoot, and get to the line very efficiently the past 2 games. I've seen enough to be convinced, hopefully Vinny has as well.
The achilles' heel for the Bulls continues to be their three-point shooting. They don't have a single good one who can hit it consistently. Maybe Brad Miller, but come on. The Mavericks seem like they're a team of three-point shooters who can hit them with a man in their face, with their eyes closed, from half-court, etc. (See Jose Juan Barrea).
The second worst thing about the Bulls? Their coaching. Amazingly, Acie Law didn't play in the second half until there were about 4 minutes left in the third quarter. Vinny was letting Kirk Hinrich and Jannero Pargo run around and continue to dribble the ball into oblivion while providing absolutely nothing on offense. Pargo's +/- last night was -12 and Hinrich's was -9. Acie Law's was +10. He gets it done, folks. I'll tell you this much. At least Pargo only played for 17 minutes, but somehow, Law only played for 21 when he was easily the most effective and efficient player on the team. It's kind of mind-boggling.
Yet still, the Bulls were in a position to maybe win this game. Yes, free-throws were the difference. But besides free-throws, you have to look at the emergence of one player who prevented the Bulls from stealing this game. The score was 90-98 with 6 minutes left in the game. Apparently, that was Jose Juan Barrea's cue. So began a barrage of 10 straight points from JJ Barrea that put a kibosh on the Bulls' comeback plans. After making a 21 foot jumper to start his outburst, the Bulls got an and-1 from Brad Miller to make it 93-100 with 5:30 left and the ball. This is where the game could have gotten interesting. It didn't thanks to James Johnson continuing to be out of control. He travelled. Surprise surprise. After a couple of threes and a 2 from Barrea, make it 93-108. I blame mostly Hakim Warrick for Barrea's outburst. On all those shots, he was coming off of a pick. Acie Law and/or Kirk Hinrich were unable to fight through those picks set by the Dallas big men, and it was Warrick's job to switch, since he was guarding the guy who was picking every time. He didn't switch once. He saw the guy was open, but left him open to run back to his man. How can you leave a shooter open like that? Isn't that one of the first rules of basketball? You switch on a pick to prevent a shooter from being wide open? And if you do it the first time, fine. It was a mistake. But how do you do it again and again repeatedly. Bottom line, it was over.
But tremendous comeback efforts on back to back nights by the Bulls. Clearly, this team isn't going to quit. And clearly, Acie Law needs to play more. However, it's tough to look at the silver lining when you've lost 9 in a row and Toronto and Charlotte both won last night. The Bulls now sit 2.5 game back of Toronto as the Bulls wait to face the Cavs on Friday night, while Toronto gets the Thunder and the Nets this weekend. That's at least a 1-1 split for the Raptors. But the Bulls get the 76ers on Saturday night, and boy will they be hungry for a win and will be looking to feast against a sub-.500 team. Plus, it's likely that some players will be back at that point (I'm looking at you, Derrick). I'm hopeful that by the end of Saturday night, the Bulls will still only be 2.5 games back with a win against the 76ers. If the Raptors manage to beat the Thunder Friday night, they'll be 3.5 back, and that may be too large a deficit to overcome this late in the season. But hope is all we have at this point.
