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Bulls 78, Wizards 64: John Lucas III leads the Bulls reserves to inspired victory

"This is my night, and I'm shooting my way to the BaB lead photo!" (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Jonathan Daniel - Getty Images

"This is my night, and I'm shooting my way to the BaB lead photo!" (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Back before the season, I pointed out the passage in this year's Pro Basketball Prospectus that talked about how the Bulls do statistical research on more than just on-court production. They want a certain personality type in their players, those who are driven yet selfless, invariably coachable and rarely discouraged. I think that type of attitude manifested itself tonight. A team playing their third game in as many nights, not only without their leader and focal point of the offense but his backup as well, looked to be the more energetic team and the one that wanted the victory most.

And it was a fun one to attend. Aesthetically the play was ugly at times, but there was an underdog feeling in the building even though the opponent was the worst team in the league. And to say you were there the night John Lucas III put up 28 shots is...well, it's something, anyway.

Lucas took on the PG slot by his lonesome (Thibodeau remarked postgame Lucas was his own backup) and definitely got his 45 minutes worth. He shot fairly terribly but at least wasn't afraid do so, and filled up the scoresheet to a near triple-double (8 rebs and assists). Playing all those minutes, even limping through a few late possessions, and holding his own was impressive. John Wall had one really nice dunk over him (literally), but otherwise you could say Lucas won that matchup, even if they weren't 'matched-up' that often. Wall's dunk actually was pretty indicative of the Wizard's night: some highlight plays but mostly ineffectual. The Bulls obliterated them on the boards, led by Luol Deng's 15 and Omer Asik's 14, and the effort the Bulls showed all night surged (with the fans in tow) to a late possession where the Bulls grabbed 5 offensive rebounds on their way to a Asik dunk.

They didn't play particularly well, but they played extremely hard and completely shut down the Wizards late. It wasn't as easy as to say 'no Rose, no problem', as the continuing issue of the starting frontcourt appeared yet again. The idea of Rose's absence allowing for a big game from Carlos Boozer turned out to be little more than a joke, as he didn't even really fight for position to set up any kind of post offense. And Joakim Noah not only was ineffectual as well but sprained his thumb. The Wizards actually hung in the game when those two were in, and it's strange but more and more true that it feels like Asik and Taj are not just fallbacks but the actual closers of the team.

That's not the best option, as opposed to getting Noah and Boozer back to something better than this. And of course Derrick Rose is absolutely necessary to have this offense work at all and his injury may scarily linger for a while. But out from the shadow of those principal players, what the Bulls reserves showed was how they make this team not just good, but great. It's having deep talent but with a common mindset as well, and the Bulls know how to pick 'em.

2 recs  |  141 comments

Comments

watching wall struggle in the nba really increases my admiration for what derrick has

accomplished. i know its early in walls career, and i realize rose was not the great player he is today by year 2, but wall doesnt even look like he belongs in the league right now. like a lot of other people i thought wall and rose were similar prospects, and given their athletic ability it was a foregone conclusion that each would find their way to professional superstardom. its been pretty sobering, even dismaying (how the hell is wall not better than this?- maybe i dont understand how to evaluate prospects at all?) to watch rose and walls careers take such dramatically different tracks.

well, wall is stil la very raw player and lacks an intellectual coach

he can improve, but i agree about your comparisions on rose and wall

Wall lacks an intellectual coach but

Rose had VDN! i dont know how to describe VDN lol

VDN is a better coach than Flip

Flip had the luxury of being on better teams (Detroit especially and Prime Garnett in Minnesota—and Garnett is still the best player he’s ever coached and having a talent like that can make you look like a good coach).

What Vinny lacks in the pure x’s and O’s, he makes up for by keeping his teams loose and building a comraderie and having them play hard.

I mean save for the abysmal start last season, those Clippers were almost .500 ball down the stretch.

He turned our team around a bit and built the culture here (he’s no THibs, but he got us out of the Boylan abyss, worked right away on Derrick’s shot, and in the 2nd year with all the injuries and gutted roster, kept the team poised after that late 10 game in a row when 4 of the 5 NBA caliber players we had left were hurt, and brought us back on a win streak to make the playoffs.

Vinny is underrated.

Flip was blessed with everything in Detroit (and did nothing with it) and perhaps arguably the best PF in the game in Garnett (Duncan maybe is 1st, but they’re in contention—much as I hate KG)…..

Now he’s got a talented bunch but they seem to be doing nothing but stay on the bottom.

Vinny isn't underrated at all. He's the worst of the worst

KG in his prime was just as effective as Rose or Griffin are in theirs (even if they haven’t got there yet)

And Griffin's team will be very good

And Rose improved, while we stripped any semblance of talent to wait for last summer.

The difference in teammates

Hinrich – Gordon – Deng – Noah

Blatche – McGee – Crawford – Young

Wall does a stupid dance every time he has a good play.

Maybe the difference is ATTITUDE.

Skill beats size every time!

Damn that kid is small!

I'm really, really happy with the win.

I avoided the game threads after yesterday’s pregame thread hit the height of negativity, with the idea that we are a sub-.500 team sans-Rose.

But we weren’t just sans-Rose. We were without our entire offensive back court (Rose, Hamilton, Watson) while on the last game of a back-to-back-to-back. Obviously the Wizards are a bit of a train wreck this year, though they found some cohesion against the Raptors after their player-only team meeting, but they’re also a young team who likes to run, which can be a dangerous thing on a tired night. But even with Rose, Rip, and Watson out, as well as Boozer, Brewer, and Noah not contributing much of anything offensively, the Bulls still found a way to win. That’s what good teams do.

And for anyone who didn't see KK's "We didn't expect him to take 28 shots" comment...

It’s priceless.

I mentioned this in the overflow thread...but it's relevant
“Coach (Tom) Thibodeau was telling me to stay aggressive, don’t back off and don’t stop shooting,” Lucas said after the Bulls’ third victory in three nights.
“He kept telling me if, `I’m open, shoot it. If I’m open, shoot it.’ I felt like I was shooting too much and then he got on me for not shooting the times I was open.”

I wonder if he tells Watson the same thing when he’s out there.

im pretty damn sure he does

he needs to be more agressive.

Wasn't Thibs a point guard/chucker in his playing days?
I don't know what position he played, but yeah I distinctly remember reading that he loved to chuck.
I can't find him on Pro Basketball Reference...
he never went pro.
I heard once that he was a big time cherry picker back in the day.
...

Oh damn

I remember that game!

for those who didn't bother to watch

KK basically says we all expected him to get 20 before the game… but we didn’t expect him to take 28 shots. Then he looks over at another player and they laugh, and he re-iterates 28 shots, and the interviewer asks how many shots did he think it would take, and Kyle goes I don’t know… but not 28 shots, and they continue to laugh.

i think the bulls are pretty close to a .500 team without rose, and last night did nothing to change my mind.

both hollinger’s and b-r.com’s team ratings have the wiz as a team an average team should beat by about 12-14 points, which the bulls obviously did at home.

Saying the Bulls are a .500 team without is controversial

People went nuts on me when I said the Bulls would’ve won the Central without Rose last year, in evaluating GarPax and Thibs, but that’s a pretty accurate assessment.

Well when Boozer and Noah are doing their best Beavis and Butthead impression, sure.
well they do that all the time, so thats just reality.
Except that is pure hyperbole.

I am definitely in the “I want Boozer off this team” camp, but let’s be realistic — he has had some good games this year. The reason I do not like Boozer is because he is so wildly inconsistent.

1) You’re leaving out that we were also missing C.J. Watson & Rip Hamilton, both of home would make an obvious offensive impact.

2) Brewer, Noah, and Boozer all massively underperformed offensively, and Deng was below his average but not as poorly as the others. Will all of them have bad nights on and off? Yes. All on the same night, all the time? No.

“Without Rose” and “Without Rose, Hamilton, Watson, and four starters having an underwhelming offensive night on the third night of a back-to-back-to-back” are two completely different things.

i didnt say boozer hasnt had good games. i thought polo was referring to games where both noah and boozer

no-show, and since noah has yet to show, and as you admit boozer is inconsistent, there have been more than a couple such games.

cj is good, but hes not better than lucas on offense.

also: rip— who gives a shit, the guy hasnt even played yet.

wow, all those guys crapped the bed on offense when their MVP point guard went down. what a crazy mystery. im sure that will never happen again.

When you use Hollinger's point differential that a .500 team should beat the Wizards by...

and then say “And that’s what we did without Rose”, then yeah, it makes it seem like the many other factors impacting last night’s game are being left out.

I disagree with CJ not being better than Lucas on offense — CJ can drive to the rim better. Obviously there’s still a gulf between CJ and Rose, but I do believe there is also a difference between CJ and JL3.

Regarding losing a star PG being related to the dip in numbers — yeah, that obviously impacts it. But once again, I also think CJ has better experience at getting the rest of the roster involved (and as much as anything, it was also just a bad off night for the others). Though, given enough playtime, even JL3 would learn the guys well enough to get them more involved.

It’s not a question of “Are the Bulls worse without Rose” — I don’t think anyone besides JBJ would argue that. It’s a question of “Are they forever and ever exactly what they were last night” without Rose — no, I don’t think they are.

there are "many other factors" in every single nba game, so i dont find that a compelling

counter-argument.

That's a really generic excuse.

If you can see Rose being out as a factor, but not also acknowledge CJ & Rip being out and most of the team being in a funk, and not acknowledge the exhaustion that a back-to-back-back brings, then that is some very convenient, selective logic.

again, CJ is not better offensively than jLIII. CJ has a 100 ORtg on 28 USG%.

JLIII has a 107 ORtg on 29 USG%. and the bulls were already playing so incredibly on defense that i doubt CJ would have added too much.

rip hasnt even played yet!

saying my argument is generic is also generic. (you said excuse, but you are the one making excuses. im saying those excuses are poorly founded.)

we should also keep in mind that the Wizards have lost something like 50 straight road

games. They did not win a road game last season and have not won one so far this season.

Except...

The three games they won on the road last season, including the 76th game of the season in Charlotte.

http://espn.go.com/nba/recap?id=310403030

The Wizards, but not historically so…

my bad

i thought i heard they went 0-fer in last year’s road games.

I think that would have been a record...

Has any team ever gone 0-41 for a season?

So have Bulls become the LeBron led Cavaliers?

Both teams seem to mirror each other in a way. The MVP. The center known for his hustle. The pf that takes a lot of jumpshots. The bench mob. LeBron had Mo. Rose has Deng. Defensive team. Defensive coach. Management that’s conservative.

As good as that Cavaliers team was, they just couldn’t get that final push to win it all. As a Bulls fan there are 3 things I fear. Rose getting injured. Rose leaving. Blaspehmy, I know. But everyone has a breaking point, even if you’re nice, shy and loyal guy. My third fear is becoming that Lebron led Cavaliers team. That team always had chances to make a move, but management always played it safe. Not wanting to give up Hickson to acquire Stoudemire comes to mind.

So I ask it again.

Have Bulls become the LeBron led Cavaliers?

Because right now we’re kinda heading that way.

Deng is much better than Mo

I think this team overall is better than the Cavs team, but I see your point.

The Cavaliers...

Never played it safe…they brought in Mo Williams, Shaq, Ben Wallace and even Antawn Jamison to try to help Lebron get over the hump…In my opinion, their lack of playing it safe probably cost them a chance to really contend, as blowing up the roster each offseason to improve really hurt their cohesiveness…I am not saying the ’07 finals team with Lebron, Hughes and Gooden would necessarily win a title, but trading that for Ben Wallace was probably not their best move…

but they could've been even less safe

and dared to part with JJ Hickson for Amare

Nah, Hickson for Omri Casspi made a lot more sense.
If that trade were really on the table...

Which it couldn’t (CBA), the Cavs would have been idiots not to make that deal.

More likely it was Hickson + pieces for Amare + bad contracts…

i havent been on thsi site long

but you guys are nuts lol. how so many complaints about our team can come up when we are 10-2. did we all forget the years since jordan left so quickly, that was awful basketball, this is great basketball. guys will struggle , there is more a a chance that noah and booze will bounce back and that every thing will be ok. we are 10-2 best team in the NBA why worry about nothing

Take the hyperbole with a grain of salt

Okay….maybe take it with the whole shaker. THEN you can consider it discussion.

I'm sure some people here could have found something to gripe about during that 72-10 season.
jud buechler fucking SUCKED
and I hated those chants for him to play in blowouts!
jesus christ i can see the future
strange introduction

‘I haven’t been here long and have nothing to say because we’re good lol’

you listed 2 things not 3 that you fear.

Keep reading

he gets to the third.

To say we are the Lebron led Cavs is a bit much.

First of all that team stuck no defence. Their idea of defence was Lebron’s weak side help on a block or an occasional chase down block on the break.

In my opnion this is a much more well rounded team. Remember Rip hasnt been playing as well and we still have be managing to win. The team hasnt been 100% since pre season. Once Rip comes back Its gonna open up the floor for literaly everyone.

Be patient my friends!

those cav teams had great defense

not as good as ours probably, but i don’t think anyone but the celtics were better statistically.

62 boards

62!

I wonder if a team has ever grabbed more rebounds than their opponent scored points.

and if so, how many times it’s happened.

I'm sure it happened when teams averaged like 34% shooting

and some guys averaged 20 boards a game

So why not just put Gibson and Asik in the starting lineup?

Clearly Thibs likes the way those guys play better since more times than not he has them finishing the game (might be worthwhile to actually look at the Bulls’ division of minutes for 4th quarters). Boozer and Noah off the bench would be quite the 2nd unit.

Although this strategy is getting the team wins and that’s undoubtedly the most important factor, I’m not convinced that having Boozer and Noah out on the floor last night in the 4th would have lost us the game. Plus Boozer and Noah can’t feel great about riding the bench during crunch time. Potentially could lead to bigger chemistry / attitude problems down the road.

I guess as long as we’re winning everything else will take care of itself

That’s a lot of moolah for a second unit

At this point, I'm all for starting Asik over Noah

But I still think Boozer’s way better than Taj.

Well maybe not way better at this point, but still better.
I think people are ignoring that Taj+Asik combo is pretty amazing when they bitch about Noah + Booz on the bench

I mean, if we were benching them for Michael Ruffin and Dickey Simpkins it would be a different story. But it’s like, “Oh no! We have two above-average frontcourt units and one of them gets paid more than the other! WE’RE SCREWED!”

well it's about having the highest standards heading into this season

is Taj+Asik a championship frontcourt?

I think it's a huge weapon to have situational frontcourts

So yeah, potentially a championship frontcourt. When we need D, put in Taj+Asik, if we need more offense, throw Noah and/or Booz in there. Plus all of them are always going to be fresh. What other teams have that sort of luxury? There are very few good/great two-way players in the NBA, I think people forget that. I’d love to have a Gerald Wallace in there, but it’s not happening and what we have is still pretty good.

this is sort of the problem with the Korver/Brewer 2-guard 'solution' last year, you can't play both at once

The Bulls need offense AND defense

it looks to me like taj can actually score at the rim.

i don’t know what boozers problem is. he doesn’t even try these days.

Yeah that's the more obvious move, but would Asik+Boozer work defensively?

Asik’s a beast manning-up against bigs, and for his size is pretty incredible at rotating, but him and Booz together seems like a footspeed problem to me.

to be fair,

boozer’s footspeed might be dictated by how fast he’s willing to move them.

I souldn't say I'm convinced the Bulls lose if Boozer/Noah returned

but I was convinced they were going to win when Asik/Taj came in.

They probably won't start for the same reason that Bogans started last year.

Thibs is weird that way. Remember Bogans almost never played in the fourth quarter.

So after last night's Lucas III game and last season's Watson game...

Is it too soon to wonder if Rose is just a product of Thib’s pg-friendly system?

I think it’s more a product of Derrick’s robotics system.

you don't win MVP being a product of a system

otherwise Golden State guards would have had the MVP locked down for the last decade

you seen derrick play a couple times, right?

you know, how like he’s pretty much the fastest player in the league and also one of the most athletic? can shoot, pass, has great handle, and is a cold blooded killer?

Keep Lucas! Trade Rose!!

Just kidding.

Ric Buchers top 7 players on espn today

1Bryant
2Rose
3James
4Howard
5Wade
6Dirk
7Westbrook(yes ahead of Durant)

hmmmm…

Westbrook ahead of Durant...

ugh

as much as i want drose back

part of me wants to see rondo getting john walled by lucas.

I also hope booz/omer and taj/noah get some burn instead of sitting 140m$. noah roams a lot on d as he pressures the pnr but he looks stupid doing it now since booz cant protect the rim. Same reason why i want see them try playing booz and omer vs opposing bench

there's no way lucas comes close to what he just did.

not on the road.

"John Walled", eh?

is that the new phrase, like Tebowing?

It may have been mentioned before, but I missed it...

Does anyone notice the creepy stare Stacey King gives the camera at the beginning of every pre-game commentator discussion?

The first shot of him and Funk always cues up in the middle of Funk saying some bullshit while Stacey stares forward at the camera like a schizo. Approximately three seconds later, he’ll snap out of his psychotic daze and look towards Funk as he gets his shit together.

Happens. Every. Game.

At this point, it’s my favorite part about the Funk/King duo, but it’s really starting to give my wife the creeps.

Am I the only one who has noticed this? I’m starting to get worried about Stacey’s mental health… Well, I guess starting to get more worried, that is….

csn makes him do it.

i haven’t seen him do it in awhile but, i know they would make him smile at the camera as the shot opens. they made dj do it when he was calling for the sox. it was so funny to see them have to put on those fake ass smiles, then just stop after 4 seconds or so like, ‘enough with this shit’. maybe he’s like, i’m not even doin this shit anymore.

Noah hurt again??

fuck man

I'm thinking this is just the excuse to put Asik in the starting lineup.
thinking/hoping
Why would you hope that?

It makes a hell of a lot more sense to hope Noah starts playing up to his usual standards.

He's not playing up to those standards and not showing signs of improving.

Why waste a starting position hoping he can get better?

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