[外電] Bulls need to rebound after loss to Magic
Bulls need to rebound after loss to Magic 我們要籃板
by Sam Smith
http://blogs.bulls.com/2010/12/bulls-need-to-rebound-after-loss-to-magic/
It was a bad night for the Bulls Wednesday against the Orlando Magic in the
United Center. So how bad was it, Johnny?
It was so bad that it was Joakim Noah bobblehead night. And Noah’s
bobblehead got the same number of rebounds that Noah got. Zero.
“They beat us in every facet of the game,” offered a restrained coach Tom
Thibodeau of the Magic’s 107-78 destruction of the Bulls, which included a
Bulls franchise-low 21 rebounds from the second leading rebounding team in
the NBA (before Wednesday). “Our lack of rebounding was giving them second
shots, a lot came from their dribble penetration. We were not good in the
low post defense, pick and roll defense, and rebounding.”
It was supposed to be a celebration that turned into a humiliation.
Carlos Boozer, the much anticipated big free agent acquisition from the great
Summer of Free Agency, finally made his debut after breaking his hand in
training camp. And you’d hardly have noticed with an invisible five points
and two rebounds in 22 minutes.
“I had high expectations for this game,” Boozer gloomily conceded
afterward. “The reality, unfortunately, is I’ve got work to do to work my
way back in and that’s what I plan on doing.
“As far as the injury, it (feels) great,” said Boozer. “It took me five,
six minutes to get the speed of the game. I’m in a down mood now because we
got beat so bad. We’re going to play a lot better than that; I’m going to
play a lot better than that.
“We’re a lot better team than we showed tonight,” said Boozer. “I’m a
much better player than I showed tonight. It’s a first step. It takes time.
Hopefully, not too much longer. I feel it’s going to get better. Because it
can’t get much worse.”
No one is blaming Boozer. Actually, I didn’t even think he should have
played after just two practices since being declared medically ready. I’m
sure he’s healed, but not only does he need time to adjust to the team, the
team needs time to adjust to him.
Maybe he should have come off the bench to start and worked in at increments.
Though you generally don’t bring in a star and start him on the bench.
So it figured to be shaky, and it was. The Bulls never imagined it could be
that uncertain, but you could see Boozer and Derrick Rose hesitant when and
if to run screen/roll, and if so where. You saw Luol Deng unsure where he was
getting the ball, and it was a difficult matchup on defense for Boozer with
the quicker Rashard Lewis, who kept losing Boozer, thus causing switches and
players rotating out of position.
The result was the usually unaggressive Vince Carter, who had 22 points to go
along with a game high 24 from Jameer Nelson, getting two tipins for scores
in the first quarter. Carter, notorious for avoiding contact, had four
offensive rebounds. The entire Bulls starting lineup combined for one
offensive rebound. The Magic pummeled the Bulls 27-10 in second chance
points, usually a specialty of this Bulls team.
And Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said he wasn’t the least bit surprised,
though Van Gundy did say he was surprised how well his team played, the best
all season, he said, and especially Carter, whom he said hasn’t played close
to like he did Wednesday. Being trailed by Keith Bogans probably helped some.
No offense to Bogans, who works hard. But he was brought in to be a deep
backup used for emergencies. It is time to get Ronnie Brewer in with that
starting group and see if they can do a bit better with those first and third
quarter starts.
“Carlos is a great player and he is going to help them a lot,” said Van
Gundy. “But it’s actually to their disadvantage when he first comes back
because they’ve developed a good rhythm without him. I’ve been in his
situation before and I would have done exactly what Tom did. You do not bring
a guy like that off the bench. You’ve got a season; you’re getting ready
for the playoffs. You need every game with the rotation you are going to
play. You know Carlos Boozer is going to be a starter. You’ve got to start
the process sometime. I’m sure Tom knew going in it’s sort of like starting
over for them. It probably was to our advantage tonight it was his first game
back.
“It’s not going to take him that long to get involved and for him to be
comfortable and them to be comfortable with him,” Van Gundy went on with
also saying he was somewhat grateful the league and ESPN even allowed other
games to get attention with the upcoming LeBron-returns-extravaganza
Thursday. “But you’ve got to do it. If you bring him of the bench, yeah,
your starters will play better because they’ve been playing together. But it
’s not the rotation you are going to be playing this year. You still have to
adjust to playing with those guys in the starting lineup. You’ve got to get
the process going. You know it’s not going to be the greatest thing for you
in the beginning, but you’ve got to do it.”
Which I can understand.
But this game, the fewest points the Bulls have scored all season by 10,
never within 15 after the middle of the second quarter, was more than the
problems of adjusting to Boozer and Boozer not able to produce much.
Noah, the league’s second leading rebounder, got pushed around and
distracted by Dwight Howard, who had 13 points and 12 rebounds.
“I tried to do a good job hitting their guys and being very physical down in
the paint,” said Howard. “We did a good job boxing out and everyone hitting
someone. Noah had been playing great and we tried to do a good job on him.”
Noah seemed so distracted by trying to stop Howard that Noah failed to give
almost any help for the guards off the pick and roll, and Rose was losing
Nelson on screens as Nelson added nine assists to his 24 points and the four
rebounds of the 5-10 (or whatever) Nelson matched the Bulls high by Deng and
Taj Gibson.
“That’s my job, to rebound the basketball, and I wasn’t able to do that,”
said Noah. “I’ve got to do a better job of it. I’ll come in tomorrow (to
practice), work hard and get ready for the next one (in Boston Friday). There
are no excuses in this league. He’s (Howard) obviously one of the best for a
reason. It’s frustrating to lose the way we lost. We feel we’re a better
team than we showed. There are a lot of things to clean up. It shows we have
a long way to go.”
The Bulls now are 9-7 and a half game up in the Central on the league’s best
defensive rebounding team, the Pacers. The Magic is 14-4, so we will hold off
on those Bulls championship predictions a bit longer.
Nelson continually got inside and it looked like one of those chariot scenes
from the gladiator movies with the races through the squares and people
scattering all over the place.
Boozer was losing Lewis and yelling for help. But Noah didn’t want to leave
Howard, so Bogans would rotate and Carter would slash inside to the boards.
Yes, that Vince Carter! Quentin Richardson would flair out for a three as
Deng tried to rotate back, and Richardson would get an open three. Or Lewis.
Or Nelson coming back on the weak side for the ball rotation. Each made
three. The Bulls combined for four three pointers.
Not that we shouldn’t have seen all this coming. The Bulls now have two 6-9
forwards from Duke, so when announcer Tommy Edwards introduced, “The 6-9
forward from Duke…,” Luol Deng ran out. And Edwards mentioned Boozer. Then
in introducing Deng, Boozer ran out. Right, if they can’t get the intros
right, how are they going to get the coverages right?
I didn’t disagree with the Bulls plan on Howard, which was not to double
team or help Noah much. I think the Bulls get in too much trouble, anyway,
when they double because they are not the greatest athletes and their
rotations suffer. Plus, the Magic get going when their three point shooters
begin to hit, so the Bulls elected to stay home with Howard. And Howard did
have just 13 points.
The first quarter, actually, was respectable as Rose scored nine points on
four of five shooting and the Bulls trailed 28-22 and shot 55.6 percent.
But it was the old, perimeter Bulls as the vast majority of the Bulls shots
were jumpers, including by Rose who didn’t go to the basket once in that
first quarter. He finished the game with 15 points, mostly on jumpers.
It was last season that Howard violently took down Rose twice, which may have
sent a message that carried over. Though Rose also seemed to be trying to
feel out Boozer’s tendencies.
Howard, for his part, again insisted he never intended to hurt Rose despite
what some have suggested.
“I think people made it seem like I was trying to hurt Derrick,” said
Howard. “Me and Derrick are real cool. It’s just like I told him: Sometimes
he comes down the lane and you are at a disadvantage because your body is
going one way and all it takes is a little bump. I tried to protect him. He
comes down the lane and takes that little jump shot (or floater), and in that
way guys can’t block those. It’s going to make him tougher, the pump fake
and going around. Just protect yourself. I never would do anything to try to
hurt him.”
Well, his pride wasn’t feeling so good Wednesday.
“I knew it wouldn’t be anything pretty,” Rose said of Boozer’s first
game. “When we get our connections going, I think we should be all right.”
Rose seemed, perhaps, to be deferring to Boozer in staying away from driving
and attacking the basket. With Boozer setting up in the post, it did appear
Rose was trying to get a feel for what Boozer could or would do or where he
would be. After all, once the season begins teams rarely scrimmage or during
practice are in live game situations. So it’s unlikely since just starting
practice this week Boozer even got much live game type action before going
into a game against one of the league’s best teams. And going through drills
is a lot different than seeing what someone will do when the defense is
paying attention. And the Magic’s was on Wednesday.
Carter was unusually engaged as coming in there had been talk in Orlando that
perhaps J.J. Redick, who was out with the flu, should replace Carter as a
starter. But Carter was attacking the basket, which he hardly does anymore,
and carrying on a conversation with courtside fans and responding to their
taunts.
They didn’t have much to say as the game progressed, and the hope turned to
boos for the Bulls, though I preferred to believe it was more calls for “
Booz.”
Boozer only attempted five shots, hardly a good sample, and Noah did get into
foul trouble with three by the middle of the second quarter. The Bulls opened
that second quarter with defensive three second technicals on consecutive
possessions as the madness and confusion continued. This was the team that
just finished the Western Conference road trip 4-3? Kyle Korver shot an air
ball, Brewer missed a open layup, Boozer front rimmed a postup jumper, Boozer
posted up on Brandon Bass and Nelson slapped Boozer’s hand and the ball.
At least Boozer didn’t encounter any carryover from the injury and seemed to
come out of the game with his hand sturdy, if not quite strong yet.
Kurt Thomas made a rare appearance for a couple of minutes and James Johnson
got in and filled up the box score with his usual array of impressive
athletic moves and head scratching decisions with the ball that usually end
up with it going the other way. He was three of five in 15 minutes with two
blocks and four turnovers.
Noah led the Bulls with 16 points as Howard didn’t care to follow Noah
outside and Noah had his elbow jumper going. So Noah did have another double
double: In points and shot attempts.
Orlando led by 24 at halftime and pretty much lost interest after that as
they settled into their jump shooting contests. The Bulls made a little run
to open the fourth with Gibson, now coming off the bench, converting three
baskets (he was a solid five of eight for 10 points) and Johnson with a pair
of blocks, but then hanging on the rim on a dunk attempt for offensive
interference and a couple of unforced turnovers. Korver teamed with Brewer on
an out of bounds pass, and the fans came, they saw and they left with about
six minutes remaining.
“We have to fight a lot harder,” said Thibodeau. “They were into us.
(Boozer’s) first game. Some good and some not so good. I liked his energy.
He can only get better. As his conditioning and timing come around, he will
get better. He’s got great hands, he set great screens, he is a very good
pick and roll player. Once he gets going, that gets us another weapon where
we can attack inside.”
The Bulls hope sooner than later.
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