I'll preemptively rail against the idea that Rose was somehow more geared towards Monday's game than any other because of some kind of make-believe redemption story after daring to miss free throws on Sunday. I think, instead, that's it's more the case of him continuing a streak of great play (including the Heat game), combined with playing the Wizards. But whatever the cause, Rose indeed looked spectacular in his 3rd straight 30+ point game. Bullets Forever provides a succinct view of the daunting task the other side usually faces:
Rose is simply phenomenal. It's hard to hold him down -- you really have to hope your big men are sliding their feet so well that they're beating him to the spot, which is so hard. If that fails, you have to hope he's not making absurd floaters, but he was tonight.
They go on to praise Rose's defense, and it was obvious to see how John Wall has some of Derrick Rose's talent but nowhere near the skill level. The difficulty of the floater shot that Rose has begun to master was evident in how poorly Wall's contorted attempts came off. Wall did put in a better performance than his previous ones against the Bulls, but it was still clear how many levels Rose is above him on both ends of the court.
Elsewhere for the Bulls, Kyle Korver played 44 minutes (no Deng or Rip), and though he cooled off a bit at the end he was huge in opening up their biggest lead in the 3rd quarter...Joakim Noah continued his stretch of great play with 13 rebounds with 14 points...Carlos Boozer scored inside a bit, and yes it was against a weak Wizards frontline, but as I always say it's better than him not doing that...the Boozer/Noah frontcourt got the bulk of the minutes as Jimmy Butler played more minutes than either Taj Gibson or Omer Asik.
It was a bit of a bummer of a 4th quarter where the Wizards were able to hang around through active defense (19 turnovers from the Bulls) to make the Bulls work after they had a 21-point 2nd half lead. Luckily, the Wiz really couldn't execute offense (mostly due to Nick Young) well enough to be a real threat, but it was another potentially valuable rest period for Derrick Rose that didn't happen. Ah well, at least he got his 'revenge'.
1 recs | 51 comments
I likes it
Great Recap
Hoodcat - January 30, 2012
just because the redemption thing is a narrative doesnt mean its wrong.
for example, george foreman lost the title to ali in late 1974. in early 1975 foreman pummels 5 schmoes consecutively in one day in an exhibition in toronto. what was he doing here? well, a lot of people say it was a kind of self-esteem boost after losing to ali. i dont think thats an absurd theory.
rose has certainly taken it easy against inferior opponents before, so i dont think its crazy to suggest that rose was particularly motivated to kick ass tonight to “correct” the previous game in his mind.
TheMoon - January 31, 2012
I agree with you
I don’t think it’s silly to think that he was pissed and wanted to play well to help forget about that game, or something (although I personally think it had a little more to do with playing Wall, as we all know he likes to fuck up the opposing pg).
Juiceboxjerry - January 31, 2012
We know how much yfbb hates narratives
and didn’t Rose say something about ‘going crazy’ tonight?
Stacey_Is_King - January 31, 2012
it's not so much 'wrong', just not as correct
And too easy. I suppose sometimes he loafs against bad teams but for the most part he always plays hard. He played hard against the Heat and had a great game. Played hard against the Wiz and had a great game. Sometimes he fixates on a game and has a bad one like against Golden State. Was the latter just not the right amount of disappointment as he felt against the Heat? Or maybe they just had a better defensive gameplan? Or he can also play poorly even when he wants to will it otherwise?
I’m not doubting there’s a spectrum of focus and intensity to the guy, he’s human and its a long season. But part of his aggression was the Wizards allowing him to be, which has nothing to do with his mentality.
Also the guy speaks in so much humblebot cliche I don’t really take his quotes seriously. He may be all genuine but if so he’s then always looking inward for an edge, with little variance.
And I was just getting my defenses up before reading the media coverage today, you’re right not to dismiss the angle but I’m sure they overplayed it.
your friendly BullsBlogger - January 31, 2012 via mobile
I think this is probably the case, I also think it's the case for just about every great sportsman
tuluse - January 31, 2012
Think this sums it up nicely:
Washington Post
The one negative from this game is that Rose had to play 40 minutes. And in this crazy ass season, that’s a BIG negative.
Juiceboxjerry - January 31, 2012
he's a 23 year old world class athlete.
I’m sure he can handle the workload.
illwill - January 31, 2012 via iPhone app
To Booker's credit, he looked solid yesterday at times.
Although a lot of that came against Boozer, but still.
bleigh82 - January 31, 2012
In other news
Why doesn’t Booker play more, he seems to always do decent at least against us (granted I don’t follow the Wizards at all, but he’s putting up decent numbers for the year on minimal PT).
majoyenrac - January 31, 2012
because Andray Blatche is just that good
Prevenge - January 31, 2012
Exactly...
Why doesn’t he play more….
Oh well.
majoyenrac - January 31, 2012
....
he was injured in the last game….and prevenge was being extremely sarcastic….blatche sucks
piccolomair - January 31, 2012
I was following suit
Sarcasm, agreeing with him.
majoyenrac - January 31, 2012
egg
on….face
piccolomair - January 31, 2012
The wizards seemed proud of their press
defense that is, but the press (media) and the fan base also seemed to harp of its success…
except i dont think its as simple as it seemed this game. I think the press defense worked well mainly because of many of the circumstances…which are
-wizards were rested
-the press was more initiated by the wizards bench forwards, who are undersized by very athletic, and wall
-the bulls lineup during the 4th really only had one great jumpshooter, korver, and one great play maker rose.
-The main reason for the lineup, rip was injured, deng was injured. While cj played, he played very limited minutes and he just seemed….not in shape. His heavily bandaged elbow was now extended to wrist bands. So he got limited playtime probably cuz of pain
-This leads to my final point, the bulls were fatigued. The lineup out there played the most minutes, was really the only lineup that could take the press, and rose gave it his all less than 24 hours ago in an even rougher game
-the wizards had started to play far more physical in the second half, rose was smacked to the ground, and while he avoided injury, getting up takes a lot out of you im sure
Kudos to the wizards coach for seeing that the press was a great move given all of those circumstances, but then again, thats exactly the only reason it seemed effective. Rose gets more rest, and i guarantee he kills the trap on his own himself.
Rip in the game, well now rose has more options to throw the ball down, not just to noah but now rip. Deng in the game, not the best ball handler, but now you have korver, deng, and boozer…include a healthy rip….well now everyones hitting shots with all that open floor.
if cj was healthier, both him and rose are on the floor, and now rose has a playmaker to pass too to kill the trap.
And you can bet the team playing the wizards next will now have time to consider the wizards throwing the press, and gameplan around it, the wizards just dont have the roster to adapt to that.
So that 4th quarter press, and this question if the bulls are really bothered by it, i think it was a good move by the wizards coach, but it was also a move that was good due to all these circumstances making it the best move.
piccolomair - January 31, 2012
i really do think the main reason why the press was sort of effective is that the bulls
were looking to waste time rather than score. boozer alone could have had 14 points on baseline floaters/jumpers in the last 5 mins if he felt like it. if the wiz tried that in the 2nd Q, theyd get blown out worse than they do now.
TheMoon - January 31, 2012
thats a good point
but i think what made the wizards, fanbase et al, think it was effective was because they forced a couple of turnovers due to it, namely on rose….(he had that weird mugging which caused him to lose the ball, and two bad passes.)
piccolomair - January 31, 2012
And just like that... Rose is the 6th leading scorer in the league.
And he’s doing it more efficiently than last year… but just a little bit though. If he keeps abandoning the 3 point shot and getting to the line then the sky is the limit.
Dr. Handsome, D.D.S. - January 31, 2012
One thing to keep in mind through all this however is that Deng is out...
While I would certainly never advocate for Deng to sit, I do think it is part of the reasoning for Rose’s sudden desire to take damn near everything to the hole.
Deng is usually the guy cutting to the rim in the half court set, and with him out Rose needs to create more of his own shots.
Khalid El-Amin - January 31, 2012
Career highs in Ts% and EFG%
wrigleyrocker12 - January 31, 2012
RIP and Deng out
Second part of a back to back on the road after a heartbreaking loss. This was a great win
Option27 - January 31, 2012 via mobile
i know we give the front office shit and stuff
but everytime we play washington it just amazes me how different john wall and derrick rose’s career have gone so far because of the situations they were placed in
sin - January 31, 2012
Yeah, but a lot of that goes on Wall too imo
At this point in his career, he’s more of a playground superstar than a great NBA player. His athleticism is off the charts, but he has no pace to his game, makes horrible decisions, and can’t shoot for shit. Derrick has always played under control, and his shot was always better than people gave him credit for
Juiceboxjerry - January 31, 2012
its an interesting comparison because i thought conventional wisdom was that when you
are evaluating young star-caliber players i certain amount of sloppiness and overagressiveness early in the career is preferable, all other things being equal, to a more measured and mature approach. so either derrick is an anomaly in this regard, or we who were chastising him for his timidity earlier in his career were being unreasonable.
TheMoon - January 31, 2012
It's really amazing
when he can’t outrun someone in the open court he’s completely hopeless. He’ll get within 10 feet of the basket and just toss the ball off the backboard regardless of velocity.
Dr. Handsome, D.D.S. - February 1, 2012
Derrick's situation wasnt exactly the greatest either
Our roster was basically a revolving door for his two first years as were trying to posistion ourselves for the summer of 2010 and our coach was absolutely clueless.
5liv4 - January 31, 2012 via mobile
yes but rose did have some competent players unlike wall
and the demand for him to become the leading player wasnt high.
Geo4MVP - January 31, 2012
He was still surrounded by mostly hardworking guys who didn't raise shit.
Ozzie Montana - January 31, 2012
of course he also took criticism much better than wall does and respected his coach more
even though walls coach was good and vinny was and remains a clown.
TheMoon - January 31, 2012
I'll never understand the level of hate for Vinny
He kept us at .500, he coached us as good as the albeit overrated Doc Rivers in that epic playoff series—but Doc had Thibs), he addressed Rose’s shot issues and started working with Derrick early, Rose never really said anything bad about him.
He also brought us back after the post trade for garbage 10 game losing streak (And they were awful losses while everyone was hurt, and brought us to .500 and kept us playing hard).
He went to LAC and after an awful start, they started to win darn near .500 ball down the stretch with that team and all the injuries and mess with Baron Davis, etc.
Now I know they added CP3 to the mix, and (while nobody talks abou it, added Billups and have a healthy Mo Williams to make them one of the best PG tandems in th eleague), but they still have
No bench whatsoever.
Granted overall Blake Griffin is awesome, but he’s not really a defender yet.
And DeAndre Jordan is more like a JaVele McGee who can’t score but who could be pretty good in a year or two.
And yet they are leading their division at 12-6 and would be 3rd in the West.
I mean compare that to D’Antoni who has Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler and the Knicks are awful.
Vinny’s no Thibadeau, not even close (though Thibs is arguably top 1-5 in the league right now), but Vinny’s been decent.
The Clipps need to add a solid bench and wait on Blake to mature and they’ll be a force. Vinny keeps em loose, and they’re doing very well. His many shooter offense with the guys in the post worked wonders on OKC last night (that barrage of 3’s post a time out after OKC brought it to 6 in the first half, was something and put a nail in the OKC loss early).
majoyenrac - January 31, 2012
he wouldn't play derrick the the fourth quarter.
that was enough.
obnoxious american - January 31, 2012
He didn't not play Derrick in the 4th
He did have Derrick sit a game or two. Mistakes yes, he wasn’t perfect, but in the grand scheme he did more good than bad with the awful roster we had.
majoyenrac - January 31, 2012
i'm not a big X's and O's guy, but from what i've heard and saw,
he didn’t have much of a gameplan on offense or defense either.
obnoxious american - January 31, 2012
thrust
ThorCo - January 31, 2012
Vinny does one thing well
Relate to players and get them to play hard.
He’s awful strategically, which means there is a good chance he was holding Rose back from progressing. Unless you think telling players to attack and play with thrust teaches them to be better.
He was also pretty awful with his rotations.
That said there are a lot of really really awful NBA coaches, so Vinny is not was never the worst, he’s just bad.
tuluse - January 31, 2012
I don't know about that
The holding Rose back thing, I think Rose kept improving and Thibs just figured out a system for his D to improve. The jump shot was coming and getting better.
Plus he had better players post Vinny to allow him to do more himself (more weapons made it harder to guard Rose).
Thibs’s system works, his D is fantastic and he’s an improvment, but the Vinny hate is crazy he wasn’t a bad coach for us and might be a solid/good coach in time. He’s not awful, he’s no thte best.
I’d take him still over Skile’s mircomanaging and finding ways to better short term reg season wins and lose potential players that could be better later for us to be blown out in the playoffs….
majoyenrac - January 31, 2012
That photo caption almost made me spit out my morning coffee.
bleigh82 - January 31, 2012
When the wizards pressed
I was really disappointed in the Bulls. As TheMoon pointed out above, part of this could have been due to wanting to waste time, but I was still disappointed. Personally, I wanted to see the Bulls score on every possession as quickly as they could coming out of the Rose traps. My reasoning is simple: showing that the Bulls will take full and swift advantage of the super aggressive Rose trapping may prevent it in the future. Ronnie Brewer really pissed me off at the end. One of Rose’s “turnovers” lies squarely on his shoulders. You can’t just wait for the ball to come to you when the other team is pressing! They are looking to be in the passing lanes. That was a four point swing as the Wizards scored out of that possession, but if Ronnie came to the ball, Boozer would have been wide open on the baseline.
I know I am overreacting, but I think the best strategy would have been to simply score as quickly as possible. Bulls could have ballooned the lead to 15-20 points quickly and gotten Rose an extra few minutes rest. Instead, Rose got the ball back in his hands with 10 seconds left on the clock and the Bulls ran a high screen roll. Ugh.
DRoseO1 - January 31, 2012
i feel like this team really need another bench scorer
Geo4MVP - January 31, 2012
I basically agree, and...
in my view, that “strategy” was another example of Thibs’ (who I like very much on balance) uninspiring offensive coaching. As badly as they played against that press, they might as well have held the ball for 24 seconds each time, give it over to the Wizards, and play defense.
Just one of many possible, semi-creative options would have been to have put Lucas (preferably CJ, but he wasn’t available) out there with Rose. Lucas is a good ball handler, and could have easily broken the press while Rose played off guard. The Wizards wouldn’t have been able to double both of them, and whichever of them took the ball over half court would have had a four on three and could have created many more easy baskets than Noah (who the Wizards could – and did – ignore at the top of the key).
Paul Warfield - January 31, 2012
yeah, im not sure why thibs didnt role out two ball handlers
he needs to realize without deng, this team REALLY need two shot creators.
Geo4MVP - January 31, 2012
Ya
I just don’t get how there wasn’t someone besides Noah getting the ball out of the trap. Although, Rip would help in these situations, as he is a pretty good passer. CJ or Lucas bringing it up would have been fine.
The part that really agitated me was the isolated high screen roll with 10 seconds on the clock. I don’t know why at that point you don’t simply isolate Rose. Bringing an extra defender toward him is stupid. Would have rather seen a brush screen with Kover at that point, because they can’t double without giving an open 3 to KK.
DRoseO1 - January 31, 2012
It was a great game to be at
Especially with all the Bulls fans sitting in our section right behind the bench. While the game always felt in hand, it seemed like we missed a bunch of shots early that should have gone in. Combine that with all the missed FTs and this game could have been completely out of hand at the half.
A bunch of friends/family told me I was on TV quite a bit too, at least the Chicago feed. I’ll have to watch my local (DC) feed I DVR’d to see if I made it on TV here.
torch - January 31, 2012
Also on the negative side...
Rip was pumped to be in the lineup against the Pistons and the Heat, and re-imjures himself in both games. WTF? It’s time for the Bulls front office to take charge of the situation and stop allowing the players to decide when they are ready to play.
I understand that muscle injuries are often difficult to assess, and that feedback from players is important. But how many times do Rip and Rose, etc. have to be re-injured before it becomes obvious to Paxson and Reinsdorf that management should play a stronger and more conservative role in the “day-to-day” type injury decisions?
I mean, isn’t it painfully obvious (pun intended) that Rip should have been rested for more games early in the season? He would almost certainly be sound now (at least the groin) had he not played in Detroit, and stayed out a few more games. Let these guys – especially old Rip – heal, otherwise the team is just asking for further problems.
Paul Warfield - January 31, 2012
yeah, and after this long road trip, it would be wise to rest up b.c the all star break is the perfect chance to gear up for the 2nd half of the season
Geo4MVP - January 31, 2012
Yup
Honestly, we don’t even need rip until after the all star break. The Bulls certainly have some tough road games coming up, but I’m betting the Bulls win plenty of them even without Rip and even Deng.
DRoseO1 - January 31, 2012
Both those situations were very different
In the Detroit game, he was pretty obviously just being an idiot (somewhat understandable, but still. dumb). With Miami, I think he would’ve gladly sat out, but I think he was just trying to fight through it in a big game for his teammates. You are right though, someone needs to take charge and make sure these guys aren’t hurting their progress.
The scary thing about Rip though, is that he did take that long term approach. I mean, he sat out for a long ass time after the Detroit debacle. Then he comes back for a few games, and it looks like it’s starting all over again.
Juiceboxjerry - January 31, 2012
so its come to this
Bab: where anything booz contributes, we just gotta deal with it
Belize - January 31, 2012 via mobile
hey, better than ben wallace.
Geo4MVP - January 31, 2012
glass half full approach?
i respect that!
Belize - January 31, 2012
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