Taj Gibson
A Night to Forget for Chicago Sports Fans
Friday, March 26th, 2010 | Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, NBA, NHL, Sports | 2 Comments
It was a night to forget for Chicago sports fans as the Blackhawks lost to the Blue Jackets 8-3 in Columbus while the Bulls fell to the Miami Heat 103-74 at the United Center. Talk about 2 bad, embarrassing losses…
Cristobal Huet blew his shot in goal by allowing 7 goals on 27 shots on net. While Head Coach Joel Quinneville didn’t praise Huet, he also indicated that the rest of the team played poorly as well. It was the worst loss of the season for the Blackhawks – the 4-goal 2nd period for the Blue Jackets didn’t help. The Blackhawks trail the San Jose Sharks by 1 point for the top seed in the Western Conference, but they did clinch a playoff spot when the Calgary Flames lost to the New York Islanders later that night.
Back in Chicago, the Bulls looked lackluster in a disappointing loss to playoff contender Miami Heat. The Bulls failed to gain ground on the Heat who are the 6th seed in the East. The Bulls played a horrible 1st half, trailing the Heats by 30 points (63-33) at the break. Ouch… Taj Gibson (12 points and 10 rebounds) and Derrick Rose (12 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds) were the only 2 Bulls who had “respectable” nights. The Bulls trail the Toronto Raptors for the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference.
Let’s hope both Chicago teams can back in the win column this weekend in Chicago. The Bulls take on the 8-win New Jersey Nets on Saturday night at the United Center, while the Blackhawks get a chance at redemption against the Blue Jackets when the 2 teams square off on Sunday night…
Lucky #10 – Sort Of – Cavs Hand Bulls 10th Straight Loss
Saturday, March 20th, 2010 | Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, General, NBA, Sports | No Comments
King Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers handed the Chicago Bulls their 10th straight loss on Friday night at the United Center. Things have not gone well for the Bulls as of late, playing without their top 3 players – Derrick Rose, Luol Deng and Joakim Noah – for a while now. Rose and Noah are day-to-day and could return to the lineup against the 76ers in Philadelphia tonight. But Deng will likely miss at least 2-3 more weeks, which means that his season could be over.
James single-handedly took it to the Bulls in Friday’s loss. He scored 29 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished out 7 assists. He also had 2 steals and 2 blocked shots on the defensive end. With his dominating effort, James became the youngest player in NBA history to reach the 15,000 point-plateau.
There were 2 bright spots for the Bulls – rookies Taj Gibson (20 points and 13 rebounds) and James Johnson (16 points and 8 rebounds) both turned in solid efforts.
The Bulls trail the Toronto Raptors by 2.5 games for the 8th and final playoff spot in the East. Given the fact that there are only 14 games left, it will be hard for the Bulls to overcome the deficit if they continue to play short-handed. If they don’t make the playoffs, the positive of getting a lottery pick doesn’t even help because they agreed to swap picks with the Milwaukee Bucks as part of the John Salmons-Hakim Warrick salary-dumping trade made right before the trading deadline earlier this month. Good job John Paxson and Gar Forman…
Rose, Deng Lead Bulls Past Pacers 120-110
Thursday, February 25th, 2010 | Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, NBA, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Sports | 1 Comment
The Chicago Bulls kept up their fast start after the NBA All-Star Break with an easy 120-110 win over the Indiana Pacers at the United Center in Chicago. Luol Deng led the way for the Bulls with 31 points and 9 rebounds. He also blocked 4 shots on the defensive end. Derrick Rose just missed a triple-double with 23 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. Taj Gibson also turned in another solid effort with a double-double – 14 points and 11 rebounds (including 7 offensive boards).
Granted the Bulls 5 of 6 streak out of the gate is somewhat expected – they beat the Knicks twice, the Timberwolves, the 76ers and the Pacers. But in the NBA, you play your schedule and you have to win these games. The Bulls are now 3 games over .500 at 30-27. They have a lock on the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference with a 1.5 games lead over each of the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks. The Charlotte Bobcats are the only other team in the hunt for the 8th seed in the East (2.5 games behind the Bulls), so the Bulls are in a good position to qualify for the post-season for the 2nd year in a row.
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…
Celtics a Different Team Without Kevin Garnett; Bulls Top Celtics 96-83 in Boston
Friday, January 15th, 2010 | Chicago Bulls, NBA, Sports | No Comments
The Boston Celtics are a much different (worse) team without Kevin Garnett. Last night’s 96-83 loss to the visiting Bulls clearly showed that. Now granted, the Celtics were playing their 4th game in 5 nights so the team was clearly not as energized as they typically are in front of their home crowd at the TD NorthBank Garden in Boston. But you can see how the absence of Kevin Garnett in the paint really affects the way other teams attack the Celtics on offense. With no Garnett (and no Rasheed Wallace too), Paul Pierce has to play that much harder on the defensive end of the court (not his string suit). Minutes also go up for Pierce (39+ minutes) and Ray Allen (35+ minutes). Over the course of a long NBA season, that can take its toll on the aging Celtics especially with the lack of depth on the team’s bench.
The Chicago Bulls should also be given some credit. They knew they had to attack the Celtics right from the start (as they did so many times in the epic 1st round, 7-game playoff series that the Celtics won last year). The Bulls jumped out to a 29-18 1st quarter lead and even though the Celtics continued to chip away at the lead (8 points at halftime; 7 points at the end of the 3rd quarter), the Bulls never let the Celtics get closer than 4 points in the 4th quarter. Even when that happened, the Bulls rattled off 3 straight baskets to up the lead right back up to 10 points.
It was a total team effort for the Bulls as each Bulls starter scored double digit points. Luol Deng led the way with 25 points and 4 assists. Derrick Rose overcame early foul trouble to score 17 points, grab 8 rebounds and dish out 4 assists. Joakim Noah notched his 19th double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Kirk Hinrich chipped in 11 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists. Taj Gibson played through his foot injury to score 14 points and grab 6 rebounds. And in just 17 minutes off the bench, Tyrus Thomas grabbed 7 rebounds – 6 offensive – and had 4 steals.
Don’t look now, but the Bulls have won 7 of 10 games. At 17-20, they are the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference, but just 2 games out of the 5th seed in a top heavy conference. If the Bulls can somehow pull off a mid-season trade for an upper echelon player or make a run at one of the top tier free agents in the much-coveted 2010 class (Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Amar’e Stoudemire, Joe Johnson) their could be good things to cheer about for Chicago Bulls fans in the very near future…
Chicago Bulls Must Fire Head Coach Vinny Del Negro Now
Friday, December 11th, 2009 | Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA, New Jersey Nets, Portland Trailblazers, Sports, Utah Jazz | 1 Comment
The time is now – Vinny Del Negro – head coach of the hapless Chicago Bulls – must go. Do you hear me Gar Forman (General Manager) and John Paxson (Bulls President)?
The Del Negro experiment has failed. Paxson (and Forman to a lesser extent) must acknowledge the mistake and correct the wrong before the team continues to fall further into the abyss. The Eastern Conference is atrocious, so even a mediocre team like the Bulls should be able to qualify for post-season play each year. Derrick Rose (16.1 points and 5.7 assists) is a star in the making; Joakim Noah hustles like no other player in the NBA and his numbers prove it (10.2 points and 11.6 rebounds); Luol Deng (17.3 points and 8.1 rebounds) still has NBA star potential and is only 25 years old (like Noah); rookie Taj Gibson (8.2 points and 5.7 rebounds) has shown signs of being ready to develop into a quality NBA player; and the Bulls have plenty of cap space available to land a big free agent from the free agent class of 2010. My biggest fears could be realized if the Bulls don’t make a coaching move right now. If you don’t fire Del Negro now, current players might regress, get frustrated or not give 100% night in and night out. Even worse, free agents may look at the team as a team in disarray and fail to consider a bid from the Bulls because of the circumstances. If the club does not land one of the big 2010 free agents, it could be several more years before the team becomes a force to be reckoned with in the weak Eastern Conference.
The time is now to bring in an experienced head coach who could also help pitch one of the big free agents to want to come to Chicago. Vinny is a nice guy, but he never coached at any level in the NBA before Paxson hired him prior to the 2008-9 NBA season. After the Bulls botched the hiring of Mike D’Antoni (who went to the New York Knicks) and Doug Collins, the Bulls settled on Del Negro – the guy his own team – the Phoenix Suns – turned down to be their head coach. His game management is bad. His offensive creativity is even worse. He might be a good head coach some day, but you can’t risk wasting the development of the likes of Deng, Rose, Gibson, Noah, etc. waiting for Del Negro to learn how to coach.
Now granted, somehow, Del Negro got the Bulls to finish the 2008-9 NBA season as the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls even took the Boston Celtics (without Kevin Garnett and Leonard Powe) to 7 games in the 1st round of the playoffs. That being said, the team has taken a major step back in 2009-2010, and you can’t simply blame that on the fact that Ben Gordon left to sign a lucrative free agent contract with the Detroit Pistons. Del Negro has not instilled that killer attitude they displayed against the Celtics in the playoffs last year and the team has been in a tailspin ever since the annual Circus Road Trip. The Bulls have dropped 9 of 10 games after winning the 1st game of the trip in Sacramento. The team now sits at 7-13 – only 1.5 games out of the 8th seed in the playoffs, but moving in the wrong direction. I don’t mind the losses to the Lakers, Nuggets, Trailblazers and Jazz to finish up the west coast portion of the road trip – a lot of teams would have lost those 4 games. But to lose at Milwaukee and then follow that up with lackluster performances in December – there is no excuse. It’s unacceptable to lose to the Toronto Raptors by 32 points at home. It’s unacceptable to lose to the 1-19 New Jersey Nets on your home court. It’s even unacceptable to lose to the Atlanta Hawks by 35 points on the road. The Del Negro ship has sailed and now it’s time for Forman and Paxson to give him one final push off the dock…
Del Negro had this to say about his job security: “I don’t worry about that. I really don’t. I go to work every day, doing the best and trying to develop these guys. Those are questions for Gar, John and Jerry Reinsdorf… We’re fighting with what we have. We’ll keep on fighting. And these decisions aren’t up to me.” Guess what Vinny – you should be worried. Your days are numbered and hopefully we’ll see a different team after you leave…
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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