Brad Miller
Bulls Continue to Frustrate Fans with Erratic Play
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 | Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA, New Orleans Hornets, San Antonio Spurs, Sports | No Comments
The Chicago Bulls are on a 3-game road winning streak, but they are still making life miserable for their fans in Chicago. The Bulls embarked on a 7-game road trip last week with an 18-20 record. They started off the trip with “winnable” games against the Warriors in Golden State and the Clippers in Los Angeles. The team knew that they needed to get a win or 2 right away because the back end of the trip was much more difficult with games against 5 teams with winning records.
So – after dropping the 1st 2 games against the Warriors and Clippers with lackluster performances, it looked like the Bulls might go winless on the trip. But then the improbable happened – the Bulls defeated the Suns in Phoenix, the Rockets in Houston and the Spurs in San Antonio. If the Bulls can win one more game on the road trip, they will match the total number of wins that the Bulls had on the road in the first 3 1/2 months of the NBA season – 4. Pretty incredible.
Now that they have Bulls fans believing again, I’m sure they’ll find a way to crap the bed against the Thunder in Oklahoma City and the Hornets in New Orleans to finish the road trip a “successful” 3-4.
The recent keys to success have been the dominating play of Derrick Rose and the consistent play of Luol Deng. In the last game before the road trip, Rose scored 37 points to lead the Bulls to a double-overtime win against the lowly Wizards. Since then, Rose has scored 19, 23, 32, 20 and 27 points respectively, and his average is now up to 19.6 points per game. Throw in a 5.9 assist average and a 3.7 rebound average, and you can see that Rose is getting better with each game. Rose has also limited himself to just a 2.6 turnover average on the current road trip, an excellent stat for a 2nd year player still learning the NBA game.
Luol Deng is the picture of consistency for the Bulls during the 2009-2010 NBA season. Deng is averaging 17.5 points per game and 7.9 rebounds per game. Since a November 19th loss at the Lakers in which Deng scored just 6 points, he has scored in double-digits in every game save for 3. Deng too has been limiting his turnovers and his renewed energy around the boards has Bulls fans salivating.
A final piece to the puzzle has been the consistent play of Joakim Noah. Noah is averaging 12.1 rebounds per game – a fabulous stat in and of itself. But the more telling stats are his minutes – 33:06 per game – and his scoring – 11.3 points per game. Noah has fouled out of only 1 game all season long so he is contributing crunch time and giving his coaches the ability to use him during all parts of the game.
With these 3 players proving their worth over the long NBA season so far, if I were one of the big free agents looking to make a move following the 2010 season, I would seriously consider the Bulls. Especially for a Chris Bosh or Amar’e Stoudemire, being able to play next to Noah on a nightly basis would elevate each player’s games to no limit. As long as President John Paxson and GM Gar Forman can get rid of Vinny Del Negro before the end of the season (or shortly thereafter) so that a free agent player will know that he has a legitimate NBA coach leading the way, I would think that the Bulls should be able to land one of the big free agents in the class of 2010…
Bulls Top Pacers 104-95; 7th Seed in East?!
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 | Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, NBA, Sports | No Comments
The Chicago Bulls defeated the Indiana Pacers 104-95 at the United Center on Tuesday night. With the win, the Bulls are now 12-17 – good for the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference. What a joke?!
For now, it looks like Vinny Del Negro’s job is safe. Derrick Rose led the Bulls with a dominating performance – 28 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds (he did have 6 turnovers however). Luol Deng continues to be a consistent presence for the Bulls – 15 points and 8 rebounds. “Bench” players also were the key to success in the win: Tyrus Thomas grabbed 15 boards and was clearly missed by the Bulls as he recovered from a broken arm injury. John Salmons poured in 17 points while Brad Miller chipped in 16.
The Bulls close out 2009 with a trip to Detroit to play the Pistons on New Year’s Eve. The Pistons have lost 8 straight games, so the Bulls are hoping they can make that 9 in a row…
Chicago Bulls Off to “Good” Start
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA, Sports, Utah Jazz | No Comments
I guess it’s all relative, but the Chicago Bulls are clearly off to a good start during the 2009-2010 NBA schedule. It looks like the Bulls might be a part of one of the better divisions in the NBA’s Eastern Conference – the Central Division. 4 out of 5 teams in the division have winning record while the Detroit Pistons bring up the rear at .500. The Cleveland Cavaliers – winners of 7 of their last 8 games – lead the Central Division with a 7-3 record.
The Bulls defied the odds by making the playoffs right at the end of the 2008-9 NBA season – earning the 7th seed in the conference. The Bulls proved it wasn’t a fluke either, taking the Boston Celtics all the way to the brink of elimination with an exciting 7-game series in which the home team won each game.
The Bulls have picked up where they left off this season. With the departure of Ben Gordon in the off-season, but the re-emergence of Luol Deng as a legitimate NBA starter (Deng has been hampered by injuries each of the last 2 seasons), the Bulls haven’t missed a beat. The Bulls are 5-4 with a solid 4-1 home record at the United Center in Chicago. Deng leads the club with a 17.6 scoring average – his 9.2 rebounds average per game is impressive as well. Derrick Rose was hampered by a bum ankle during the pre-season, but is slowly getting back into game shape. Rose averages 13.8 points, 5.3 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game.
The biggest surprise for the Bulls has been the consistent play of Joakim Noah – 11.8 points and 12.2 rebounds per game. Talk about a huge step-up from his 6.7 and 7.6 averages from last season. Kirk Hinrich has also impressed with his solid play early in the season – 9.9 points and 4.56 assists per game. And Rookie Taj Gibson has showed some brilliant moments in limited play so far. Gibson is averaging 7.3 points per game and his 4.89 rebounding average is 3rd behind Noah and Deng on the team. 20 of his 44 rebounds have been offensive rebounds so he can clearly spark an offensive outburst during his minutes.
If the Bulls are going to make a push for a 2nd consecutive playoff appearance, they are going to need better play from John Salmons (12.6 points and 4.0 rebounds) and Brad Miller (8.2 points and 4.7 rebounds). To date, neither player has played as well as anticipated heading into the season. The Bulls are also going to have to play better on the road.
The Bulls now embark on the grueling “Circus” road trip to the west coast (as the Circus invades the United Center for 2 weeks). As mentioned above, the Bulls tend to play poorly on the road, so it will be important for the team to win at least 2 of the 6 games on the trip. It won’t be easy because trying to against the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets, Portland Trailblazers or Utah Jazz on the road is highly unlikely. That leaves games against the Kings in Sacramento and the Bucks in Milwaukee to win. The 2 games after the circus road trip are against the Pistons at home and the Cavaliers on the road, so it doesn’t get any easier with 2 intra-division battles. At 5-4, this will be a telling 8-game stretch for the Bulls – they certainly won’t be over .500 at the end of it, but if they can win at least 3 of the games, an 8-9 record isn’t the worst thing in the world this early in the season. Head Coach Vinny Del Negro and his staff will have their work cut out for them over the next 3 weeks of the NBA schedule.
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