Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011
Posted 8:42 PMUpdated 11:44 PM
By Aggrey Sam
CSNChicago.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C.Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau summed it up thusly: The big thing about this league is getting ready to play, each and every night.
Everyone says, Oh, its the last five minutes. No, its not. Its the start of the game. Its readiness to play. And when you study all the stats, you see that the teams that are leading after the first quarter, theres a big discrepancy, in terms of how much they win, he continued. Were dodging bullets. Weve got to come out with a lot more intensity and weve got to guard people at the start of the game.
Chicago (25-13) didnt dodge anythingparticularly a first-quarter onslaught by the homestanding Bobcats (15-21)Wednesday night, losing their third consecutive road game, 96-91, to Charlotte.
The story of the Bulls season continued with another sluggish start, as the Bobcats scored the contests first seven points. Even after a Derrick Rose (17 points, seven assists) jumper briefly staunched the bleeding, Thibodeau called a timeout after a Kwame Brown (10 points, five rebounds) dunk.
Brown got deep post-ups, said a frustrated Thibodeau afterwards. If he catches the ball with two feet in the paint, four feet from the basket, hes going to score.
Brown would score eight points in the early going, frustrating Bulls veteran Kurt Thomas (nine points, seven rebounds, four assists) into a technical foul. Brown wasnt the only participant in the home teams early onslaught, as All-Star forward Gerald Wallace (14 points, seven rebounds), versatile Frenchman Boris Diaw (13 points, five rebounds, five assists) and third-year point guard D.J. Augustin (22 points, 12 assists) all did damagethe latter two also proved to be capable distributorswhile Rose was the only Bull to be effective through the midway point in the opening period.
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Charlotte gave problems in the paint and on the perimeter, as they gave Chicago problems from beyond the arc, on the glass and moving without the ball. Augustin, in particular, began to truly find his groove and despite Luol Deng (22 points) picking up his offense as the period went on, the Bulls trailed, 36-22, after a quarter of play.
Weve got to change it now. We gave up 36 points in the first quarter. Lately, weve been giving up too many points in the first quarter, trying to clean it up in the second half of games. We cant continue that pattern. Weve got to play better from the start, said Carlos Boozer. We cant be one of those teams that has slow starts, rely on ourselves to come back. Weve got to be a team that puts it on them from the jump and goes that way. Its something that weve got to clean up and clean up fast.
Chimed in Rose: Thats exactly what we have to doIts hard for us right now, but hopefully we get to smooth things out pretty soon.
All the tight situations that we were in this season, we didnt want to be in those situations. You want to win the game as easily as possible, so that you can save your energy and let your bench come in and do their job, especially as a starter. I think that we started off wrong with the starters. We didnt come out with a lot of energy, we let them score 36 points in the first quarter, that gave them confidence and it was going to be a long night, he went on to say.
You cant do that on the road because everythings going against you. Away from home, the crowd can get into it. A team can easily go on a run because of their fans and the way theyre feeling at home. We cant afford to that right now.
Added Thibodeau: They got whatever they wanted to start the game, so now youre playing from a deficit, but the important thing for them is that theyre playing with a lot more confidence. Now your job is a lot harder to slow them down.
The second period didnt start out on the best note for Chicago, as they incurred a five-second violation to begin the quarter. An ugly showing didnt immediately improvethe Bulls forced bad shots and had no semblance of an offensive flowbut playing against the Bobcats second unit, they didnt allow the home team to significantly extend their winning margin.
The visitors managed to gradually chip away at Charlottes once-formidable advantage and Thibodeau began to filter his regulars back into the game, which had slowed down considerably from the initial breakneck pace the Bobcats prefer. Chicago cut their deficit to single digits and the games momentum was clearly in its favor, as the passion the home crowd had that made up for the Time Warner Cable Arena being half-full had been quieted to a half-empty lull.
Charlotte, however, restored their double-figure advantage, with Dengs transition takedown of former teammate Tyrus Thomas (17 points, 13 rebounds)one of several Bobcats players and coaches (let alone the owner) with Windy City connectionsresulting in a flagrant foul with less a minute to go before halftime and perhaps illustrating the lack of beauty in the Bulls first-half performance. At intermission, Chicago was on the wrong end of the 55-42 score.
Boozer (23 points, 14 rebounds) got it going early in the third quarter, playing with aggressiveness and mixing teardrop shots, mid-range jumpers and point-blank attempts. The Bulls gradually ate into the Bobcats lead, as Charlottes shooting was unable to manufacture the same quality of shots it did in the first half.
Chicago, with a three-pronged offensive attack of Rose, Deng and Boozer, in addition to a stout defensive effort, made it a close-knit affair as the period dragged on. The contest suffered from a lack of flow, however, as it was muddled ticky-tack foul calls on both ends of the floor.
Augustin was the Bobcats protagonist, but with leading scorer Stephen Jackson (16 points, four rebounds, three assists) off the mark, co-star Wallace less active than he was in the first half and Diaw saddled with four fouls, the home teams offense lagged outside of Thomas, who persisted in shooting jumpers, some of which dropped for him.
Augustin played a good game, said Thibodeau. I thought that our defense in the second halfactually after the first quarterwas much better and they made good plays. Give them credit.
With 1:03 left in the quarter, the Bulls finally overtook Charlotte and headed into the final stanza with a 70-69 advantage.
With things evened up more or less, the neck-and-neck affair became more of an execution-based ballgame and with reserve sharpshooter Kyle Korver knocking down a pair of 3-pointers, the Bulls built a slight cushion. It wouldnt last long, however, as the Bobcats quickly battled back, as Chicagos shot selection wasnt selective enough.
Down the stretch, Charlotte consistently went to Jackson, who began to deliver after struggling through a horrific first half. The home team seized the momentum and with the Bulls not functioning at their peakdefensive lapses, missed free throws and not securing the ball were all issuesthe visitors appeared to be heading in the wrong direction.
It felt like we had control of the game a little bit in the fourth and the next thing you know, we were down by four or five, said Boozer. It was a weird flow to the game, but weve got to get ready for Indiana.
Said Thibodeau: We caught up and got the lead, and we couldnt play tough with the lead.
As theyd done the entire second half, the Bobcats continued to effectively get the ball out of Roses hands in pick-and-roll situations with intelligent defensive blitzes and equally smart rotations, preventing the All-Star point guard from even making the pass that led to an assist on most occasions.
Rose was perplexed by the defensive adjustments Charlotte made, as they threw a different look at him by trapping harder and closer to halfcourt. Even when he successfully passed out of double teams, the Bulls were usually unable to convert.
Weve just got to get used to it. Usually, opposing defenses do a soft blitz, said Rose. This time, they were blitzing me almost at the hash line, but tomorrow, hes Thibodeau going to go over it and we should be fine the next game if they choose to blitz like that.
Explained Thibodeau: Weve got to make sure were doing things to get up the floor quicker, get some more open ground. We didnt play at the pace that we wanted to play at. The other thing about the trap is that its easy offense, but weve got to move the ball. We took a lot of shots after one pass and you cant do that. If you want to make them pay for the trap, its the second pass and that will get you a very high-percentage shot.
When we did that, we got layups, we forced them into long close-outs and we got good shots, he continued. But sometimes we were settling on that first shot and were settling on the shot after the first shots, and they were right there and it was a contested shot, which then becomes a low-percentage play. Weve got to make that extra pass; the ball has to move.
Augustin, a close friend of Roses and summer workout partner, implied that his familiarity with the opposing floor general helped him defensively.
I knew what he was going to do on offense, said Augustin. He wants to get to the basket and attack, and thats what he did. I just tried to stay in front of him.
On the other end, Charlotte scored enough timely baskets to maintain a two-possession lead over their Windy City foes, as Augustin picked apart the Chicagos defenses and either scored or got the ball into the hands of the likes of Thomas, Diaw, Jackson and Wallace, all versatile players and capable finishers.
With 2:38 left in the contest, however, Rose finished a tough shot and drew a foul, hitting the ensuing free throw to bring the Bulls within a point. After a couple of back-and-forth sequences and no scores, Rose found Boozer inside to give the Bulls a one-point lead.
But Thomas, the former Bull, finished a twisting layup to give the Bobcats the lead once again and on the subsequent Chicago possession, hustled to make an incredible save to retain possession for Charlotte with 57.1 seconds on the clock. Then, on the following, crucial possession, Jackson hit a fallaway jumper in the post over Deng at the 34.8 mark to extend the Bobcats lead to three points.
With an opportunity to still tie the game, Rose turned the ball over out of a timeout, forcing them to foul Augustin with 23.4 seconds remaining.
I just tried to stay in front of him on Roses turnover and I had great help from my teammates, Augustin recounted. He tried to throw it and Boris stole it, so it was a good play from our defense.
The diminutive point guard drained both of his attempts, stretching Charlottes lead to five. Out of a Bulls timeout, Thomas goaltended a Boozer layup off a quick-developing inbounds play with 21.4 seconds to go, giving Chicago ample time to extend the contest in its late stages. However, with errant shooting and Augustin delivering at the line once again, the Bobcats were able to hold off the Bulls final charge.
Said Thibodeau: We fought out of a hole the whole night, and in the end, we came up short.
Added Rose: For sure, we thought we had control, but we let it slip. The only thing we can do from this is just learn from it.
Our energy was just low. Fast break, we werent hustling for the rebounds, second shots and that went on throughout the whole game, he continued. But we let this one slip tonight and its going to hurt us. Weve got a game Friday and weve got to take it out on them.
Boozer broke down the Bulls maladies to CSNChicago.com.
"We have had some late-game wins, some late-game heroics this season. On the flip side of that, we need to have that same fire, intensity, sense of urgency to start games. Its something that unfortunately, we havent been doing lately and these last three games on the road, its caught up to us. Here, going forward, weve got to have the same sense of urgency that we end games with to start games. We cant give up almost 40 points in a quarter, in the first quarter of a game. Weve got to play better than that and this team is capable of playing much better than that on the road, so its time to show up."
Aggrey Sam is CSNChicago.com's Bulls Insider. Follow him @CSNBullsInsider on Twitter for up-to-the-minute Bulls information and his take on the team, the NBA and much more.