chw42

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 5, 2011 -> 01:30 PM) You realize every game he throws up like 2 half court shots though right? And here's where I get flamed (despite being a huge Rose/Thibs/Bulls homer): Rose isn't perfect, we all know this. He's got a terrible habit of picking the hard route when there's an easier one available. He's getting caught getting in the air to pass, with no one to pass it to. And he's taking shots that he shouldn't take. If i'm Thibs i'm telling him to take 3-4 three's a game, but otherwise let Deng or Korver take those. Also, I think Boozer is starting to get an unwarranted amount of hate put on him. Booing the guy? Seriously? The guy is soft and screams way too much. I agree with this. He's clearly not the greatest player in the word. But let's be realistic here. He's not utilized properly at all in this offense. He gets the ball 15-18 feet from the basket and is expected to generate his own shot. That's not his game. Nor is it the back to the basket. His game is the pick and pop, something Thibs is just ignoring for some reason. You didn't bring the guy here to be a defensive stopper. They knew he'd be a liability (albeit with good rebounding). But I can't fault the guy for not coming up with 20 pt games when he's just not given the opportunity to do that. I also think Deng can contribute more. Yes, he's having a good playoff run already, but he should be more of a focal point and not the guy that bails everyone out. He's a great shooter and can iso guys, so why not let him try that? Mix the offense up a little to take some pressure off Rose. I'm tired of guys like Barkley saying that Rose is the only one that can create shots. That's just not true. They won 62 games because guys like Deng took over (even over Rose). This team has completely forgotten about that, and I think it all started when everyone claimed Rose had to do it all for the team to win. I remember he had 1 lob at the buzzer at the end of the first.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 5, 2011 -> 12:02 AM) Yeah, I think we're all admitting that. Not one person challenging your characterization of his evening is saying Rose should have hoisted that many three point shots. What we are arguing is that those poor shots don't negate a 25/10/6 performance to "horrible." I'm not sure how these efficiency statistics work, but it seems as though they are measuring performance much the same way that they do in baseball, where your offensive chances are roughly equal to the rest of the players on the team and your defensive opportunities are for the most part random. It seems to me that since your opportunities in basketball are as much defined by your other teammates as the defense, that the accuracy of these statistics would be called into question. Are these efficiency statistics weighted to reflect the skill level of the other players on your team? Is there any way they can possibly measure the contributions your inefficient attempts contribute to the rest of your performance or the performance of your teammates? Is there any correlation between Rose's attempts and the efficiency of the rest of the Bulls players? I don't know a whole lot about advanced basketball metrics myself, but I think the concept is pretty simple. Limit low percentage shots, just like how outs are the prize in baseball. By taking low percentage shots, you are technically giving away an offensive possession. Just like how you bunt to give an out away in baseball. Yeah, there's a chance of the shot going in, but it's nowhere near as high as a high percentage shot. Just like in baseball, where the bunt can make scoring a bit easier, but in reality, the gain in scoring probability is very small and the risk associated with failing to bunt the guy over is far larger than the reward. Defensive stats in basketball kind of suck and are incredibly team-oriented and there's not many resources out there to improve that. So if we interpret Rose's offensive night based on the amount of shots he missed and the amount of times he turned the ball over, he was pretty damn bad tonight. I like TS% and I think Felix alludes to it a lot without directly saying it, but it's basically points scored/2(FGA + (FTA * .44)). Rose has been in the 44% range these last two games, which is absolutely terrible and that doesn't even include the 8 turnovers he threw in.

Lakers on the verge of going down 2-0.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 4, 2011 -> 11:29 PM) I understand you think we are all simpletons and can't understand advanced statistics, and I readily admit I am still trying to comprehend many of the new baseball statistics, so I sure as hell haven't gotten around to the basketball variety. But I feel like I've watched enough baseketball in the course of the past 27 years or so to recognize a horrible game, a really, really bad game, and whatever other outrageously negative adjective you'd like to assign to his performance, and that performance doesn't strike me as that. It seems like if Derrick wanted to satisfy your idea of a good game, he could just refuse to accept the scoring load and just look to distribute and take the ball the the hoop all night. That way he'd stockpile assists, free throw attemtps, and probably shoot for a higher percentage since so many of his missed shots would not count because he would be fouled. Nevermind the Bulls would probably score 70 points and lose by 10-12, at least he would compare more favorably to Chris Paul that way. Or he could stop shooting so many threes, his lowest percentage shot. I want Rose to score as much as possible and to take good shots. At this point, a three pointer is not a good shot for him. In fact, it's pretty much giving up the offensive possession for nothing and giving the Hawks a nice head start on their offensive possession. It ruins the flow of our offensive game and puts us in a hole defensively every time he clunks one. The worst part is that these are usually open shots. His three point shooting is a legitimate issue that needs to be limited, if not stopped. Teams are sagging off of him daring him to shoot it right now and it's working wonderfully for the opposition. I know Derrick's trying to exploit that and maybe trying to prove them wrong, but when your shot's not on, it's not on. Pick another day when it's on to shoot 8 threes. Even some of the best three point shooters in the league know when to stop. Rose doesn't seem to know when.

And Noah + Deng were nails tonight. Bulls might have lost without those two contributing the way they did. Double doubles for both. Deng hit a couple of big shots on back to back possessions to seal this game basically. Noah saved Rose and Boozer a couple of times with big put backs. With Rose struggling, the Bulls need these two to bring it for the rest of the series.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 4, 2011 -> 09:55 PM) But Jordan had plenty of performances worse than Rose's today and not many people were calling them horrible. I am perfectly willing to accept Rose's performance today as "disappointing," or as Lost said, "mediocre." Horrible, it was not. I'd say it was bad. .44 TS% and 8 turnovers. He shot similarly in game 1 minus the 8 turnovers. I would call his game 1 performance mediocre though.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 4, 2011 -> 09:54 PM) Carla Boozer played like a b**** today... I've got half a mind to meet her in the locker room and f*** her to see if that helps. He's mentally wrecked at this point. I blame this on Kwame Brown.

The only guy who had a even worse game than Boozer today was Josh Smith. Oh my god he is bad... If it wasn't for Boozer giving him some lollipop blocks, he would have been utterly useless today.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 4, 2011 -> 09:45 PM) Oh jeesh. I think "horrible" may be a bit strong. Not his best game, but he's playing on an injured ankle with an offense where he basically has to generate everything. He doesn't have to shoot 8 threes to generate offense. In fact, he did the exact opposite today. His 8 turnovers and 8 three point shots probably hindered the offense. Not all those turnovers are his fault, but he's the one deciding that he should pull up for a three pointer when he can easily run a better offense or shoot a higher percentage shot. Rose is a stubborn player. He's trying to shoot out of his funk right now and it's just not working. Bad ankle or no bad ankle, he needs to adjust to whatever circumstance he is dealt with. If that means less lift on his inside shots then pass more. If that means less lift on his jumpers, then stop shooting 3s.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 4, 2011 -> 09:39 PM) Right now he needs to focus more on taking the open mid-range shot which he is most efficient. I will say this, this is the Bulls D that I'm talking about. Deng was phenomenal on Johnson and Atlanta is not going to shoot a high percentage if the Bulls keep this up, outside of if Atlanta just gets a little lucky. Keep it up Chicago!!! Game 1 was just an outlier, Crawford and Johnson came back to earth today big time. Of course, I doubt Atlanta's gonna shoot 34% again in this series. So the outliers seem to be out of the way and maybe we're due for some normal basketball in the next however many games.

QUOTE (Felix @ May 4, 2011 -> 09:30 PM) Chanting MVP for a player that had more shots than points and 8 turnovers. I get that he won the award, but that was a bad game. Horrible game. I didn't even watch it, but following it on gamecast was even a pain. Turnover after turnover, 3 point shots left and right (that would miss). Somebody needs to tell Derrick to stop shooting these. If you want to fix your jumpshot, do it in practice.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 4, 2011 -> 12:14 PM) How could you NOT get choked up watching that speech about his mom? J4L sold his soul to Carlos Gonzalez long ago.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 3, 2011 -> 11:18 PM) The 2007 White Sox should be on this list. Truthfully, I wasn't expecting too much that year. But I sure as hell didn't expect 72 wins.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ May 3, 2011 -> 11:00 PM) 2011 because there's just no reason for this at all. Kenny built a team on paper that should be at least in 2nd place right now. The players are vomiting all over themselves and Reinsdorf looks like an idiot for actually believing in his team enough to run out the highest payroll in Sox history. And that brings me to another point, which is that this 2011 team may go down in history, at least for the next 5+ years, as the singular reason why JR won't spend anymore. And it would be hard to blame him. And if that happens, we can all thank these great players, managers, and coaches for their contributions this season, on and off the field. This isn't on Kenny and it isn't on JR IMO. Even Mark Teahen has a pulse for God sakes. This is all on the players. Well said. If this team doesn't bounce back and get its act together, we are in for the dark age of White Sox baseball in the next 5 years. At least the Bulls are good and there's Derrick Rose...

Wonder if Ozzie's gonna have a post game press conference.

QUOTE (TomPickle @ May 3, 2011 -> 09:44 PM) I'm sorry guys, but I think I jinxed us. You write for FanGraphs? I was reading that article today.

lol @ thread title.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ May 3, 2011 -> 09:22 PM) Selig needs to put on asterisk on this one. Really shouldn't even count. This was even worse than Jackson's no hitter. At least Jackson struck some guys out. Liriano struck out...two hitters.

Thornton in...sucks for EJax.

There's the no-hitter. Beckham, Pierre, and Alexei due up. Very doubtful any of them will get a hit.

And Rios swings at a pitch way out of the zone...

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 3, 2011 -> 08:57 PM) I think Castro has the best chance of ending this, although I seem to recall Rios either broke up Romero's no-no last year or ended his shutout with a homer. Can't remember which. Maybe he can do that again too. Cuz, seriously, how sweet would back to back jacks be? Almost as sweet as honey, which is almost as sweet as a BJ from Meagan Good That was the game where A.J. pretended to get hit on the foot.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 3, 2011 -> 08:55 PM) How does ejax only have two strikeouts? Twins hitters are just as bad as the Sox hitters. They go hacking and don't even give Jackson a chance to K them.

We're single-handedly turning the Twins' and Liriano's season around.

Only Kaplan reported that Rose had a grade 2 sprain. No other sources have said anything. I wonder how legit Kaplan's report was.