Rebounding machine Noah finds his groove

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After snaring a season-high in rebounds Sunday night at Philadelphia, then following up the performance by corralling 17 boards in a grudge match against Indiana, one might expect Joakim Noah to be exuberant. Not likely.

Im feeling good, feeling healthy, said Noah. Winning makes me happy. Its not about double-doubles. Its about winning.

Noah rarely talks about his personal accomplishments, unless hes being critical, but when it comes to his teammates and victories, hell fill up a whole tape recorder with delicious quotes. Earlier in the season, when he wasnt playing at what he considered to be a high level, it was obvious in both his body language and his comments to the media.

Now, despite his modesty, its clear that hes feeling good about himselfif that wasnt evident from his increasing frequent Tornado jumper attempts from the elbow and subsequent finger guns celebration after a makehis words might not reflect it, but the bounce in his step gives him away. But perhaps there was a reason for his slow start, as the lockout allowed him to get in excellent physical conditioning, though not find his rhythm, as he hadnt seen significant court time since his stint for runner-up France in the FIBA EuroBasket event.

At the start of the season, we had the heavy schedule and game conditions are a lot different. We had 14 games in 20 days and he was getting to a lot of balls, but he was bobbling. Now, hes snatching his rebounds with two hands in traffic, hes range rebounding, explained Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau. His conditioning is great and I think the start of the season was more of a challenge for the big guys than it was for the perimeter players because its physical. Youre not going to get that type of contact other than in an NBA game. You can do all the conditioning you want, running and stuff like that, but its different.

Added teammate Derrick Rose: Jo, hes putting the effort in. Hes coming in, putting in his work, conditioning. It takes a lot of conditioning to go up there, for a big to chase down all the balls. Hes doing it and his confidencethats all I could say; in this league, all you need is confidenceand thats what he definitely has.

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