PG: Philly evens series on lights out shooting

[PistolP]

I'm down with giving Mike James a shot. I think he controls the offense better than both CJ and Lucas, while staying aggressive himself.

Still, Lucas has to get minutes. He has proved time and time again he can get buckets, in flurries. Sure he can suck it up with over dribbling and missing passes on time, but he has to get some minutes.

Play Mike James as backup PG. Give Lucas the Brewer rotation (Ronnie is proving himself useless) and slide Korver/Rip to the 3, but yank JL3 if he's cold.

We also need to stop playing the full bench mob all at once. One of Rip or Deng should be on the floor at all times.

[MnM24]

Let lucas/MJ start, let CJ have his usual role.

Dont play set rotations, thibs u idiot

[jl342323]

Dont play set rotations, thibs u idiot

Why? that got us 62 win last year and we were on pace for 62 win season this year.

[BJ43]

I think we need to run the offense through Boozer and Noah in the low/mid/high posts EARLY in the offense. I'm not saying they have to shoot or create anything every time, I just think the ball needs to come out of the point guards hands right away so we can get away from CJ and Lucas dribbling the ball until the shot clock is in hail mary time.

We just can't have the point guards dribbling the possession to death. Neither CJ or Lucas can handle the trap on the ball at all.

The point guards need to do their thing, but lets not start the offense that way.

This right here, they simply cant do what Rose does and blow by anyone, the Sixers defenders looked to have an easy time staying infront of them, Lucas did get past a couple of times and scored, but he needed the screen which is not a bad thing, but he keeps calling them off for some reason...CJ also had ONE drive where he went strong and drew the foul, but more often than not he'll pick up his dribble and we see perimeter passes until the shot clock is down and someone has to force one up

I say not just Boozer and Noah, let's throw it in to Deng inside too....speaking of Deng, I wish he would look for Korver more, he was open about 4 times last night when Luol had it and he just doesnt even see him, he's so focused on his dribble

[GetBuLLish]

I was just thinking about this. The Bulls really have one playmaker, Rose. Pretty much all of the good playoff teams have 3 playmakers and sometimes four. So if you were to take the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th best playmaker from these teams and put him on the Bulls, he would become the Bulls top playmaker with Rose out.

Let's take a look:

Spurs: Parker, Duncan, Ginobili (Gary Neal?)
Miaim: Lebron, Wade, Bosh
OKC: Durant, Westbrook, Harden
Lakers: Kobe, Bynum, Gasol (Sessions?)
Memphis: Z-Bo, Gasol, Gay, Conley (Mayo?)
Dallas: Dirk, Terry, West (Roddy B.?)
Boston: Pierce, Rondo, KG, Stiemsma (okay, just joking about Stiemsma)

Pacers: I really have no clue about them, to be honest. Maybe you can include Hibbert, Granger, George, and West as playmakers. Not sure, though.

[SeniorWalker]

Hardly anyone has talked about Deng, well I did briefly early in the thread, but with Rose out, Deng's ineffectiveness is really starting to hurt, especially combined with Boozer's inability to step up and be a dependable 20 point threat.

Lu has a 9 PER and .465% TS% in 2 games now vs Philly. (Boozer 8.2 PER, .466 TS%. No excuse for him). And his offense has been depressed ever since the injury. All he can really do consistently is hit spot up threes.

We didn't know Derrick was going to get hurt or miss so many games, but now you begin to think more about what if Lu had had the surgery right away and tried to make it back for the playoffs.

Normally he would be our second best player and possibly good for 18-20 a game without Derrick. That 2007 series vs Miami is just a wistful memory, unfortunately that is really the type of performance we need from one of our remaining top guys without Derrick for us to get back on a roll.

We simply have a roster that is very injury prone and its beginning to get worrying as far as future contention of this team. Last year it was Noah and Boozer. This year Rip, Rose and Deng again.

Last year Deng had a rare ironman season but this year is hobbled again despite the huge minutes. This year Boozer had a rare ironman season, but was hobbled last year. Now of course Rose. Next year I think we should plan for a 2nd season of Rip Hamilton missed games because that has been his M.O for several year now. If Brewer is gone (he started 43 games with good team success) is Jimmy ready to start... ehh.

If Rose and Deng's maladies cause next year to be washed out, we can say that is three straight years where our contention was derailed by injury, to either a moderate or huge degree. Very frustrating.

This must be what it's like to be a Portland fan. Not that they had gone out and proven themselves, but they had a load of talent before injury decimated their hopes and dreams. Really could have been a different western conference if they had healthy players.

[bullsnewdynasty]

Pacers: I really have no clue about them, to be honest. Maybe you can include Hibbert, Granger, George, and West as playmakers. Not sure, though.

George Hill, Collison, Barbosa

[KingCuban]

I will preface this by stating that i may be the biggest John Lucas hater on this board.

Yes, he has pulled some amazing shots out of his rectum during the regular season. Yes, he has won us some games, but i cant stand this man as our PG.

Every single game, all i see is getting the ball pounded into the ground. He can’t get others involved and looks for his shots way to much, to the point where he often leads the team in shot attempts for a half

What the hell is the point of having Mike James, who in every game he has played has done very well in limited minutes?

The guy is a proven NBA player. I’d argue John Lucas shouldn’t even be in this league.

Thibs, im pleading with you to give James a chance, especially when Watson is underperforming and when Lucas is just practising his dribbling skills.

[suckfish]

You're not wrong about Lucas. Yet you can't deny that when he hits a couple of shots and gets in a flow he completely changes the game.

I know, I never thought I'd ever call John Lucas a game changer in my life, but he does have the ability to take over stretches of games and we actually need him for it.

[KingCuban]

You're not wrong about Lucas. Yet you can't deny that when he hits a couple of shots and gets in a flow he completely changes the game.

I know, I never thought I'd ever call John Lucas a game changer in my life, but he does have the ability to take over stretches of games and we actually need him for it.

Sure, he did for a bit yesterday, then it failed. It’s just not sustainable.

What is though is constant movement and actually utilising our terrific passing skills that our bigs have. A constant motion offense with everyone involved with a ball constantly being kicked around to the open man is a great offense.

It brings guys like CJ and Korver into it from deep. It brings Brew into the offense by him cutting through gaps. We can also forge a nice 2 man game between Boozer and Noah.

Watching a point pound the ball, CP3 or John Lucas for the majority of the shot clock is poor offense and will lead to failure imo.

[Mech Engineer]

I will preface this by stating that i may be the biggest John Lucas hater on this board.

Yes, he has pulled some amazing shots out of his rectum during the regular season. Yes, he has won us some games, but i cant stand this man as our PG.

Every single game, all i see is getting the ball pounded into the ground. He can’t get others involved and looks for his shots way to much, to the point where he often leads the team in shot attempts for a half

What the hell is the point of having Mike James, who in every game he has played has done very well in limited minutes?

The guy is a proven NBA player. I’d argue John Lucas shouldn’t even be in this league.

Thibs, im pleading with you to give James a chance, especially when Watson is underperforming and when Lucas is just practising his dribbling skills.

For all the time Thibs has spent with JL3, he doesn't know his strengths and weaknesses. For an offensively challenged club like the Bulls, JL3 is definitely a momentum changer many a time this season. You just cannot discount that fact.
What Thibs is doing wrong is just replacing Rose with CJ and CJ with JL3 as if they are milk cartons in the refrigerator. JL3 needs to be play only in certain situations based on match-ups, game-flow etc..

[GetBuLLish]

For all the time Thibs has spent with JL3, he doesn't know his strengths and weaknesses. For an offensively challenged club like the Bulls, JL3 is definitely a momentum changer many a time this season. You just cannot discount that fact.
What Thibs is doing wrong is just replacing Rose with CJ and CJ with JL3 as if they are milk cartons in the refrigerator. JL3 needs to be play only in certain situations based on match-ups, game-flow etc..

Not excusing Lucas and his obvious deficiencies, but let's remember that he had a good first half and the Bulls had a 10 point lead (or something close) at the half. In the third quarter, the first unit allowed something like a 15 point swing, giving Philly all the momentum.

Maybe Mike James would have been a better option to shift the momentum back to the Bulls, but it was Watson and Co. who gave Philly the lead and momentum in the first place.

And considering Lucas's good first half, I find it hard to fault Thibs too much in going to Lucas to try to stem the tide.

[jl342323]

For all the time Thibs has spent with JL3, he doesn't know his strengths and weaknesses. For an offensively challenged club like the Bulls, JL3 is definitely a momentum changer many a time this season. You just cannot discount that fact.
What Thibs is doing wrong is just replacing Rose with CJ and CJ with JL3 as if they are milk cartons in the refrigerator. JL3 needs to be play only in certain situations based on match-ups, game-flow etc..

noticed this way back when jl3 first started for this team. he had 25 points and chucked alot of shots. and before that cj was putting numbers up when he had his first shot at starting earlier in the year. this offense is built for the PG and nothing else. i bet i was one of the first to mention this was built for the PG in the beginning of this season. drose was the focal point of the offense and it gave him the best chance at scoring the ball. this is okay, b/c drose is one of the best to play this game, but you just cannot continue to play like this with jl3 and cj.

it just seems like the bulls start fast with boozer as the focal point in the offense. boozer was 2-3 in the 1st quarter of the 1st game against sixers. and then boozer started 3-4 in the second game. when boozer started to miss shots, they just stopped going to him and played like they did all year, which is using boozer as a midrange jumpshooter to space the floor and a garbage man. this is a disturbing trend and i dont think it will change even without drose.

[KingCuban]

Good summation jlmanynumbers.

I totally agree.

[chitownsalesmen]

Philly did what they had to do to win the game.


I'm hoping that in-case if we don't last more then 4 or 5 games against or even reach Miami in the ECF, that this series vs. the 76's gives us a few more games then we might have first expected upon first glance.