chw42

Great defense creating good offense.

If the Bulls defense plays as aggressively as Miami's, Wade and LeBron would be falling all over the place trying to draw fouls.

QUOTE (Bighurt52235 @ May 24, 2011 -> 08:53 PM) I don't want Carlos to lose his stats for today. : ( Knowing Carlos, he might go into a rage if that happens.

God damn weather...

QUOTE (G&T @ May 24, 2011 -> 08:47 PM) Wade is only a factor when Korver is on the floor and Rose is on him. He hasn't been all that great otherwise. Always looking for a foul. Wade has looked pretty meh against Brewer and Bogans.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 24, 2011 -> 08:46 PM) James has missed several of those contested shots that he made in the last 2 games too. That's just regression to the mean. There's going to be a game where Miami shoots like crap. This could be it, but the Bulls aren't really capitalizing on it.

Bulls created offense with defense in that run. They can't beat that Miami defense in the half-court.

Joel Anthony...WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE'S MY POSTER MACHINE?

Take Korver off the court, please. Especially if he's not going to shoot.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 24, 2011 -> 12:27 PM) I have no complaints about Alexei's defense. I just found it funny that a thread about him maturing as a hitter popped up when his OPS is nearly identical to the one he put up over his entire rookie season. It's nothing to be excited about, in terms of maturation. However, he is the least of our problems, so I hate that I turned this into a complaint thread. Go Sexei. Matt already said something to this extent, but OBP is a lot more important than SLG. In 08, Alexei had a decent OPS because he had a slugging near .500. The problem was that he never got on base despite hitting .290. This is the problem with OPS, it treats OBP and SLG as equals, when they really shouldn't be. wOBA gives getting on base a much more fair weight. Instead of having 4 walks = a home run like OPS, a home run is equal to a bit less than 3 walks with wOBA. Plus, wOBA is based on past run values, so it is a stat that adapts, while OPS stays constant. I can go on about how superior of a stat wOBA is in comparison to OPS, but I don't think anyone else wants to read about it.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 24, 2011 -> 11:07 AM) Derek Jeter Pat Quinn was on the radio broadcast the other day and thought Alexei actually won a gold glove last year. I don't blame him.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 24, 2011 -> 10:57 AM) Elvis Andrus I'd say he's close, but no numbers show that Andrus is a better fielder than Alexei these past two seasons. I don't think I'd take Andrus over Ramirez by eye test alone either.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 24, 2011 -> 10:53 AM) In the discussion and definitively the best are two very different things. Who's a better defensive SS than Alexei off the top of your head?

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ May 23, 2011 -> 03:30 PM) I remember during the last Oakland series either Hawk or Stoney pointing out a discussion they had had with Kurt Suzuki. Apparently Suzuki feels that Alexei is one of the few guys in baseball that is making adjustments pitch to pitch rather than at-bat to at-bat. I think that's a pretty good compliment to receive from a solid catcher. It seemed like he did a good job of that his rookie year. It hasn't really been apparent in the past two.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ May 23, 2011 -> 02:43 PM) 2nd highest WAR of any SS in baseball (behind Jose Reyes) at 2.0, tops in the AL (finished first in the AL last season). Alexei Ramirez is just a damn good baseball player. Good thing we extended him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 23, 2011 -> 01:47 PM) Yeah, but normally, this is only the beginning of Lexi's hot streak. His walk rate is also at 8.7%, back his to his 09 numbers, where he had a decent OBP despite hitting .277. If Alexei can combine that walk rate with the power he is showing, then he's easily the best SS in the AL, if he wasn't already.

Got the equipment to connect my PS3 to my HDMI-less and speaker-less LCD monitor for 13 bucks. Gotta love Amazon.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 22, 2011 -> 11:24 PM) Boozer is what he is defensively, we all know that. He still did things tonight that just anger you but as you said if he's going to put up 26 and 17 I can deal with it. He's far from the reason we lost this game. As long as he plays well on the offensive end, I'll be fine with his lazy D. On one play yesterday, the curl with Bosh where he got a dunk because Boozer didn't rotate, Rose looked like he got pissed at Boozer. Derrick did a little spin motion with his hand while looking in Boozer's direction after the dunk. I'm assuming that was supposed to mean rotate.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ May 23, 2011 -> 12:09 PM) Juan is a career 74.6% base stealer, which most saber-knowing folk would say is actually a detriment to his team's success. Most oganizations have realized that stolen bases are not terribly important from the leadoff man. Also, please refresh my memory, why do we want our leadoff hitter bunting, again? It's not a detriment, just really eh. Plus, when you steal as many bases as he does, your percentage is bound to go down.

QUOTE (knightni @ May 23, 2011 -> 12:02 PM) Mature... I hope so; he's almost 30 years old. His problem is that he's just a poor base stealer and he can't bunt. That's not really a leadoff-type hitter. Good that means Ozzie will make him bunt less, or maybe not. I was surprised as hell to see Alexei with an OBP near .350 yesterday but an average in the .280s. For him, that usually means a .315 OBP, but he's really taken a lot of walks. Good for him. That's a part of his game that needed vast improvement and he's making strides.

Noah has been neutralized these past two games on the boards. Haslem has been huge for the Heat, to say the least.

QUOTE (Real @ May 22, 2011 -> 10:14 PM) oh and the bulls didnt lose because of extended rest, they didnt lose because miami is so much better, they lost because they fall apart in the late 3Q and whole 4Q defensively. Miami had 43 points in the first half. They ended up scoring 53 in the 2nd half. the bulls proved they could hang with the Heat in the first half, but they fall apart mentally in the 2nd half, and have nobody (Rose included) who can step up and make their own shots and start a run. They started off the third really well too, even had a lead. But Bibby totally screwed that momentum with a couple of 3s.

QUOTE (IamtheHBOMB @ May 22, 2011 -> 10:10 PM) Uh, how about not jumping into people on shot fakes? That would probably save about 7-8 fouls a game. I got really pissed at Rose when he decided to jump into Wade when Boozer was already there and Wade looked helpless. You pin Wade into the corner and force him to make a decision. He makes that shot maybe 20-30% of the time if he just throws it up. If he makes it, so be it. You'd rather give him that than 2 free throws.

Bulls simply got outplayed. There needs to be adjustments made on defense.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 22, 2011 -> 05:34 PM) Damnit, this would have been a nice sweep, and 6 game winning streak. And only 2 games under.