RealGM

Don't know if they keep stats on this, but our defense seemed to be heavily focused on two elements:

1) Contest every shot - clearly we aren't as good here, particularly at the 3pt line.
2) Beat the man to the spot and take charges. I just don't see guys taking charges anymore.

Are there stats on this that someone can check?

we arent taking as many charges this year

Based on last night, we certainly don't have any trouble drawing charges.

Cough*Nocioni-bull in a china shop*Cough.

Snce the refs have been told not to reward floppers on defense, guys like Nocioni don't get the benefit of as many calls as they did in the past.

Jermaine O'Neal leads the NBA in getting charges called against the player he's defending, with 38. The top Bulls player in this category is Ben Wallace, with 23 -- which is tied for 15th in the league. Next on the team is Nocioni (20), followed by Joe Smith (17) and Kirk Hinrich (16). The 16 by Hinrih is tied for 27th in the league -- so 4 guys in the top 30 in the NBA isn't bad.

Yea the whole flopping thing has stopped hard, and I'm glad that it did. I like Nocioni, but sometimes he was obviously faking it and getting away with it.

And to add to it the Bulls aren't "freshly" scrappy anymore. Their scrappiness got stale, and teams stomp on em.

I noticed this after Skiles left. Maybe Skiles focused on this and now that he's gone guys don't want to make the sacrafice, except Noc of course.

I credit this to the refs more than the players. This has been killing us though..because now on many of the drive kickouts...our guys try taking a charge..don't get it and it leads to a wide open jumper. So those turnovers we used to force last year are not only not turnovers anymore..but wide open shots. Can't even say how many backbreaking shots have been hit on us this way.

Some charges are flops, but some bull got were really charges; what I see is that refs aren't paying attention anymore, mostly of fauls aren't called just bc with no explanation.

taking charges was one of our biggest weapons especially against slashing teams. Honestly I thought at times we were better drawing fouls on defense than we were on offense. Now we can't do it on either end. I can credit many of our wins against teams like miami (wade) and Jersey (Carter, RJ) to our ability to draw charges and frustrate them like no other.