Since the overall series has been ably previewed by Matt, Tom Lewis and others, I'm going to use the first game preview to focus specifically on likely strategies and what's changed for the Pacers since our last game. After all, we know what's going on with the Bulls, but how will the Pacers approach the game? As I said back in my mid-March game preview my overall impression of the Pacers is that while they're average to above at every position, they're lacking in stars and don't quite have the killer cohesiveness (or individual talent) to really match up well with anyone.

Of course, the Pacers played hard, promptly demolished my prediction, and squeaked by the Bulls. That game more or less shows the formula for the Pacers to beat the Bulls. In that game, Derrick scored at will, but no other Bull could get it going (in fairness, no Boozer). Offensively, this game, like most Pacers victories, centered around getting one of their bigs (Hansbrough or Hibbert) going off really well. That night, it was Hansbrough for 29 and 12. The Pacers absolutely need this sort of big man scoring because otherwise they tend to be a collection of guys who stand around and shoot from distance without much accuracy or organization. Hence their poor offensive numbers.

Offensively, the Pacers will have a hard time with this because teams have figured out, to a large extent, that Hibbert can be goaded into bad fouls and Hansbrough can be guarded because he passes, literally, as often as Eddy Curry. He's gotten slightly better at passing off instead of diving headlong, pump-faking into the basket at every opportunity, but his mind is usually pretty made up when the ball touches his hands. Front him, don't bite on the fakes, and he'll force up a bad shot.Beyond their bigs, they'll have Mike Dunleavy back, which doesn't sound like a lot, but he's finally recovered enough from his injuries of a couple years ago to be dangerous as a shooter again. Importantly, he's a guy who's experienced and disciplined enough to wait for the right shot, which sets him apart from their younger guys, and Dunleavy replacement Brandon Rush. Still, this is a pretty marginal upgrade.

Defensively, I can see the basic strategy they employed against the Bulls in the past working, but it'll be harder because we've got Boozer back, and we'll pick and roll, roll, rollem. Despite being a good defensive team, the most of the main Pacers players - Hibbert, Hansbrough, McRoberts, Collison, George, have significantly less experience, and especially big game experience than the Bulls. They generally play hard, but they haven't had anything remotely like the Thibs mentality ground into them, with respect to both playing like their uniforms are on fire and having intensely practiced a complex team defense.

So the Pacers keys to the game are:

1. Offensively- get the bigs going.

2. Defensively- Defend the pick and roll and everyone else, let Derrick get tired.

I know this sounds really simplistic, but just remember that it's no different than what Vinny Del Negro actually used to tell the Bulls. Thank God that's over, right? For the Pacers, just because an approach is simple doesn't mean it's wrong. Sometimes simple is right, just very hard to do. And, simple is easier than complex, especially for a young team without much experience. Also, I've scoured the Pacers world over the past couple days, and have read absolutely nothing else from the guys actually on the Pacers. There's no hidden plan to suddenly unleash, they've just got to come out and play hard.

Continue reading this post »

Great comeback coming up short?

Sorry, for the late overflow thread

Tip off at 6:00pm central.

Well, the Bulls are coming to Indy tonight, but I doubt I'll get downtown to see it. This should be an interesting matchup for a variety of reasons.

* With last night's victory over the gritty but hapless Nets (micro-recap: victory in these games probably shouldn't completely be overlooked; it was on the road, Derrick continues to pummel Deron Williams into oblivion, Omer Asik posted his first career double-double, and Keith Bogans reverted to the guy we all shake our head about) we're in the first seed in the East. If the playoffs started tomorrow, the currently 8th seed Pacers would be our opponent.

* Down the road, Basketball Reference projects the Pacers as the overwhelming favorites to be the 8th seed, but they're only 3-7 over their last ten, and might be on the ropes. My main observation is that the Pacers have really struggled since Mike Dunleavy broke his thumb a couple weeks ago. It's not that he's great, but he was playing all around good ball and of his replacements, Brandon Rush has been all around terrible and Paul George, while talented, is a rookie who makes mistakes.

* With Dunleavy, their lineups were cohesive and had quality, ready NBA players at every position, although none of them are really top-notch ones. They can probably be overwhelmed in any case, but without him they make mistakes and don't spread the floor as well.

* Individually, Tyler Hansbrough, Danny Granger and Roy Hibbert are the main guys to be concerned about, but all three of them are guys who will continue to shoot against the odds and not come up with much. To be blunt, I like our chances in this one. Defensively, we're set up very well to contain all of these guys, and they're not set up all that well to stop our guys.

* For a more optimistic take on the Pacers, Indy Cornrows is the place to go. I see them playing hard since they're fighting for their playoff lives, but like the Celtics (who beat the Pacers night before last), the Bulls have a lot riding on this one too.

Slugfest so far

Underway at 6:00PM Central time!

[ From the Fanposts. I figure news will carry the day, but there was nothing too juicy this morning, beyond what was established in the JJ trade: Bulls have more assets, looking to acquire someone on a rookie deal with space+picks in favor of trading a rotation player (or Omer Asik, heh). A report out of Memphis is that a Korver-for-Mayo swap was discussed.

Other NBA trade rumors can go here, and if there's a confirmed deal feel free to create a new post. Until there's a juicier Bulls rumor, we'll use this for all our Bulls trade dreams. Sports2 has his dream below. -ed.]

How the Griz will get us C. Lee...

Continue reading this post »

Update: Here's the four factors. And a few thoughts. ~S2

We came in second. Discuss.

Well, that sucked. The obvious cause of last night's loss was the Bulls inability to break the traps Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis applied to Derrick Rose. CJ Watson came in and laid an egg. I'd say lay some bricks, but he barely managed to hit the rim. I guess the question going forward is how much of the poor performance was caused by an off night vs. how much was caused by a good strategy from Warriors coach Keith Smart (by the way, can we assume he didn't learn that from Don Nelson?). It matters because we'll certainly see that strategy more in the future, and we need to be able to break it.  

Another quick guard who can at least somewhat reliably bring the ball up the floor would help. Another area a quick big guard would help is defensively. Overlooked in the talk about Rose's bad game is that the Bulls, IMO, did an uncharacteristically poor job defensively. Ellis and Curry are freaking fast, and we could neither stick with them nor find someone to stop them at the rim. Would this not have been a good night to try to camp out Omer Asik under the basket and tell him to knock down those guys if they got close? Chalkwhite, who wrote up a nice preview, by the way, has a nice recap in which he notes

I don't want to make it seem like we just shot ourselves in the foot- the Warriors had a great game plan. They packed the paint with bodies and dared us to beat them with jumpers. On the other side, we laid out a red carpet to the paint- even when they weren't scoring, Ellis, Curry, Wright and Lee were absolutely living in the paint.

Yeah. So anyway, it's a road game against a well-prepared team. No cause to panic, but, like Derrick Rose, I think losing sucks and we should take some lessons from it.

Pretty close so far

Next thread in an hour or so

[From the FanPosts. Solid reasoning to me. The Bulls often preach flexibility but they also like their roster (as they should), so combining that, their current tradeable contracts, and a future creeping towards the luxury tax (with a new CBA and Rose extension looming) and they don't have that many options. The question becomes would you deal future draft picks to help this season, and to me the answer is yes. Even that mythically-valuable Charlotte pick, as I'm not forward-thinking enough to worry about Boozer's replacement just yet -ed.]

So first, let's think through some "Why these guys won't happen" scenarios:

Their teams are shooting for the playoffs (or better) and don't want to dump them for less than a market return (which we can't offer and still win the trade ourselves):
* Iggy, Joe Johnson, Jamal Crawford, OJ Mayo. Sorry.

These guys are over the hill, and/or so expensive as to make a trade impractical given their contracts (we'd have to give up too many important pieces to get them):
* Steven Jackson
* Rip Hamilton
* Michael Redd

These guys are probably obtainable, but not at the right cost. And these guys aren't that good:
* Fran Garcia- has three years left on his deal, and I think the Bulls would only take a guy with that sort of deal if they were getting a guy who was a very obvious long-term fit. Garcia is a nice player when healthy, but aging and injury prone.
* JR Smith- Expiring contract, but one that's big enough that we'd have to give up a rotation player to get him, so we'd just be trading one hole for another.

These are the guys I think might be realistic to think about, because they have the following combination of traits: 
1. Their contract is short enough that if we don't want them around in a couple years, they'll be off the books.
2. Their contract is small enough that we don't need to trade one of our main rotation players to get them.
3. Their current team is either so far out of it, or so deep at their position that the player in question is not playing very much, and the team would credibly prefer future savings/draft pick/James Johnson to continuing to have that player.

Courtney Lee - I'd give up either Asik or one of our picks+JJ for him. Maybe Asik + our pick if we really don't have any other options and it'll get it done. Rep as a good defender and smart player. Has developed into a good three point shooter. Basically, a better, younger version of Bogans. Might be a long term solution. Would Houston give him up? Well, their whole franchise is Kevin Martin at the moment, so when is Lee ever gonna get anywhere there?

Martell Webster - JJ/Bogans/Scal for Webster. Not even giving up a pick. Why? Because the TWolves are awful it'll knock his $5.2M salary off the books in exchange for JJ's $1.8M. Most noted for being the guy the Blazers basically gave up Deron Williams to get, and for being pretty injury prone. A big guard who's athletic but not super agile. Very good spot up shooter. Think Dennis Scott. Would space the floor something awesome. Downside is he might not defend much better than Korver. Upside is that we get another shooter at a low cost, and quantity has a quality all its own.

Brandon Rush - The Pacers are shooting for the playoffs, so I'm not sure they'd do this, but Rush has fallen entirely outside of the rotation behind Dunleavy, Paul George, and Dahntay Jones. Rush has amazing basketball tools. He's a very good shooter, athletic, and can defend. He'll have a stretch of spectacular play, then he'll utterly disappear. His head is full of rocks and weed smoke. I'd offer JJ to get him, because Rush is a much better fit, and because I think the rest of this team has little chance of being poorly influenced by him and some chance of positively influencing him. And because we don't seem willing to use JJ anyway. Or Bogans for Rush straight up to save the Pacers money. 

So anyway, I think these are the gettable prospects. Maybe there are a couple other ones out there that I've missed. Not DeMar DeRozan though, he's poop. I think they all offer an upgrade in the quality of minutes they can provide over Bogans, and I think the cost for all is a reasonable one. That being said, I don't see any of them, aside from Lee, as a very likely longer-term answer to our problem. That is, if you tell me Brandon Rush is getting minutes for the rest of the year, instead of Keith Bogans, I'm happy. To a lesser extent, that's true of Webster as well. Lee... I can see it working a little better although I'm not 100% sure of it working.

Lots of commentary tonight

New thread later if we need one. Happy New Year!

Where what wants Melo meets what Melo wants.

Closing time!

Part Deux

Kurt vs. the Bulls. 

Close it out!

Wherein we find out if Luol Deng's soft, gumby-like, bendable bones are superior to Greg Oden's peanut brittle hard ones...

Don't get too loud, the sound might break Greg Oden's bones...

Roaring back, Bulls by 4. 2 minutes to go, plus the letting it all out after the game.

Update: Bulls win.

Thoughts to sleep on:

* Rose's 39 was nice

* I truly hope JJ's defense puts an end to the Brian Scalabrine era

Bulls down 19 heading into the half. Meh. 

Thanks to me for tonight's preview, since the guy or gal who signed up shamefully hasn't posted anything yet. Boo! If you'd like to sign up to do a game preview and actually do it, go here.

Anywho, at 7:00pm Chicago time the Bulls open up the United Center against the visiting Pistons, who started out 0-2, losing at the Nets and then losing their home opener against the Thunder last night. Basically ,the circumstances are in our favor.

Not only are the Pistons unlikely to be as fresh as us, they aren't very good. Former Bulls but still Bens Gordon and Wallace look to be healthy to start the season, along with Tayshaun Prince, so perhaps they shouldn't be underestimated, but with Rodney Stuckey and Austin Daye filling out the starting lineup, they don't seem to be setting the world on fire.

Probable Bulls Starters | Roster and Statistics

Guard 1 Derrick Rose 6-3 | 190
Guard 6 Keith Bogans 6-5 | 215
Forward 9 Luol Deng 6-9 | 220
Forward 22 Taj Gibson 6-9 | 225
Center 13 Joakim Noah 6-11 | 232

Probable Pistons Starters | Roster and Statistics

Guard 3 Rodney Stuckey 6-5 | 205
Guard 32 Richard Hamilton 6-7 | 197
Forward 22 Tayshaun Prince 6-9 | 215
Forward 5 Austin Daye 6-11 | 205
Center 6 Ben Wallace 6-9 | 240

With lotto-rookie Ed Davis (ed: I screwed up the first time and wrote the Raptors guy out) Greg Monroe injured and yet to set foot on court, and backups Jonas Jerebko and Chris Wilcox hurt, this looks like the perfect opportunity for Thibs to implement the look inside strategy he recently talked about with ESPN Chicago's Nick Friedell. My thinking is that if there's ever a time for Noah and Taj to shine offensively, it ought to be against these guys.

Also worth watching tonight:

* In the Friedell article, Thibs said Korver won't play much more till his defense is better, and Brewer won't play much till he seems healthier. Let's hope for those things, and a convincing outing from CJ Watson, because Keith Bogans is definitely not who I want to watch very much.

* Will summer-time Wannabe Bull Tracy McGrady have a visible fork sticking out of his back as he hobbles up and down the court? In the Pistons' first two games, he's played 20 minutes and has yet to score.

I think big trades are interesting because whether they happen or not, they give big insights on why things happen in the NBA that we don't usually get to see.

* Why don't we see these insights under normal circumstances? Because everyone's a liar. For example, you've got Avery Johnson saying

Coach Avery Johnson relayed a message to reporters Wednesday that he gave his top draft pick: Ignore the rumors, Favors is special and not being traded.

"One of the agreements we made was, 'If you don't hear me say anything about you then it's not accurate,'" Johnson said, before discrediting an ESPN report stating the Nets were offering Favors in a package for Anthony.

"You know how it works out. One story or one source hits the wire and then it just goes crazy."


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/ba...#ixzz118gAF9hh

Yeah, right. Translation: We don't want to tell the kid, who would be pissed, that we just offered him up. So we'll blow smoke up his ass.

* And don't get me wrong, it makes sense for everyone to be a liar and to speak in blithe non-statements. For instance,

Forman said he spoke to Noah and Luol Deng, who both have been mentioned in reports about trade talks for Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony.

"If there's an opportunity to improve our team, we're going to explore it," said Forman, who said he wants to be transparent with both players.

Translation: Yeah, we don't want to trade Noah, but we're also negotiating a contract with him, so we don't want to tell him we wouldn't trade him for Carmelo. Because that's ammo to say he should be paid like Carmelo.

* Despite this, teams are practical about putting their players in untenable positions, and aren't going to leave a trade on the table forever. It messes with folks' heads and makes it hard to actually, you know, work on basketball.

Nets obviously/rightfully want story to die so Harris/Favors don't get trade questions every day. Safe to say, though, Nets still want Melo
{AND}
Annoyed as they were by delays/Denver indecision CHA & UTAH lose out if new deal develops: Bobs on PG upgrade w/Harris; Jazz on big savings

Wojnarski writes

Meanwhile, the uncertainty that’s surrounding teams involved in the talks is starting to take a predictable toll on egos and emotions at training camps. Even if a deal for Anthony never materializes, New Jersey coach Avery Johnson has serious repairs to make with Nets point guard Devin Harris(notes), a league source told Yahoo! Sports on Monday.

Harris had been a huge advocate for Johnson with former Nets officials by endorsing the hiring of Johnson over the summer, and a source says Harris is feeling "a little put off" that the coach is so quickly looking to send him out of New Jersey as part of a trade for Anthony.

As part of the original four-team trade proposal, Harris was destined for Charlotte and wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the move. And that was especially true after Johnson had spent the summer selling Harris so hard on how much he needed him to help sell the coach’s program in New Jersey.

Johnson and Harris had an up-and-down relationship in Dallas, but Harris believed the Nets desperately needed Johnson’s discipline and structure, and pushed hard with former president Rod Thorn for Johnson’s hiring. Harris, 27, came to the Nets in 2008 as part of the Jason Kidd(notes) trade with Dallas. He had his best season as a pro in 2008-09 when he averaged 21.3 points and 6.9 assists.

AWKWARD!

* Teams, especially teams that have just fired their brain trust, will attempt to be gamed by other teams. And nobody's gonna offer squat if the player himself won't commit (from the Woj article)

Sources said the Nuggets had strong interest in trying to do a deal with Philadelphia that included swingman Andre Iguodala, but the Sixers’ inability to get a commitment out of Anthony that he would sign a contract extension with them made the point moot.

* Too many leaders means no leadership at all. All of this is especially a problem since

One of the biggest obstacles with cutting a deal with the Nuggets, league executives said, continues to be the peculiar and unclear power structure of the Denver front office. What had been the case under the previous regime has carried over with new vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri, the owner’s son, Josh Kroenke, and adviser Bret Bearup: No one talking to the Nuggets is sure who’s in charge, who’s making the decision and who can get everyone in agreement.

* And as always, what things really come down to is money.

The four-team trade fell apart when Denver kept trying to include more of its players in deals to spare themselves a bigger luxury-tax bill that would’ve come with the arrivals of Kirilenko and Favors, sources said. The proposed trade would have added $4.5 million in salary to their payroll plus another $4.5 million in luxury tax.

This is one of the strangest things about the proposed Melo for Favors/AK47 deal in the first place, at least to me. And it points to the previous point, that the Nuggets were sending mixed signals about what they want. Perhaps they weren't and still aren't sure. Or perhaps the new guys they hired simply don't know how the luxury tax worked and what guys made. It certainly strikes me as possible.

* Now that they're (presumably) up to speed, let me suggest one final push for the Bulls. The obvious deal to make for the Nuggets is one that puts them under the luxury tax. As things stand, they're approximately $12.5 (S2 Salaries ~ I haven't gotten around to adding their training camp fodder in yet)-$14M (Trade Machine) over the luxury tax.

Since most teams are over the cap, even sending back expiring contracts doesn't help the Nuggets much. For instance, instead of paying Melo $17M and being over the tax, if the Nuggets dealt for Eddy Curry, they'd have to pay him $11M and still be over the tax threshold. Which would suck.

So the right deal for a team trying to get the Nuggets to let go is going to give the Nuggets major savings, not major cost. There are two teams that could plausibly help here; Cleveland and Toronto. They both have big trade exceptions from losing their star free agents this summer. Big enough exceptions to absorb Luol Deng's contract without sending anything else back.

Continue reading this post »

Assuming Lebron actually goes to the Heat, how do you compete with that?  I think the only possible way is to get a guy who could be a superstar, and most any cost, and hope it turns out.

Because right now, the best you can imagine for the Bulls is they'll have a big 2 that can hold their own against the Heat's big 3. If the Bulls, or any other team out there want to have a fighting chance, they're going to have to find that third guy.

And obviously, that's super difficult. Anthony Morrow, JJ Reddick, or even Josh Childress are not and never gonna be superstars. Neither is David Lee.

So now that I've gotten my salary page relatively up to date, I started looking around.

So let me suggest the only guys I can think of who might be remotely up to the challenge
1. Chris Paul. There's been speculation he could be traded, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The Hornets moved MoPete and got themselves under the luxury tax. So I think that's pretty much OBE.

2. Gilbert Arenas. Probably gettable for nothing. In fact, the Wiz would probably offer up something we'd like if they had anything. Unfortunately, he's had major knee problems, and just got out of jail. Maybe participation in the "Scared Straight" program has changed his outlook and gotten him serious, but I don't think I could bring myself to pull that trigger without several months of psychological evaluation.

And even then, while I could see Rose and Paul coexisting, I have a harder time seeing Rose and Arenas working out, although in theory they could be uber-dynamic, both attacking the basket and firing passes to Boozer. 

3. Evan Turner. A rookie who hasn't played a real NBA game, but coming out I think he's one of the top SG prospects in several years, and probably will be every bit the equal of Brandan Roy, although maybe not as good as Wade or, say, Kevin Durant.  If he's that good, why could we get him?

Because the Sixers doled out huge money to Elton Brand, and they would at least conceivably think about letting Turner go if someone cleared the decks for them.

To the Bulls, of course, Brand doesn't make a lot of sense, but he's still a very similar player to Boozer, and a guy that could be helpful. And the money won't be quite an issue to the Bulls, because they'd have their core team locked in and be competing for a title over the next several years. Hopefully.

So this idea, I think, seems at least a bit plausible to me. You get ahold of a guy who could be the third member of a Big 3 to compete with Wade/Bosh/Bron, and you give it the old college try.

Sixers send Elton Brand, Evan Turner
Bulls send Taj Gibson

1- Rose
2- Turner
3- Deng
4- Boozer, Brand
5- Noah

If the Sixers wanted, I'd also willingly swap Deng for the slightly more expensive but more athletic Andre Iguodala

Would the Sixers do this? Would you as a Bulls fan?