Chicago Bulls Thread

[Cleveland wins]

Bulls should go on some winning streaks once Boozer is completely healthy and back to his old scoring ways.

[Andrew]

I read somewhere that December 10th was a chance of being his return game, which would be the rematch against the Lakers.

That game's being shown here, hopefully it ends a little better than the one last week. As I mentioned before, the Celtics game is on ESPN this Saturday.

[Andrew]

An update following Boozer practicing with the team:

Chicago Bulls forward Carlos Boozer reported no problems after practicing with the team on Monday for the first time since breaking his right hand in an accident at his home on Oct. 2.

Despite the successful outing, coach Tom Thibodeau wasn’t ready to make a decision on whether Boozer would play Wednesday against Orlando.

“He looked fine,” said Thibodeau. “We’ll see how it goes tomorrow (in practice) and in the shootaround on Wednesday. For the first day, it was very good.”

[George7]

Fantastic News!
Hopefully we can see him getting some minutes on the next games and getting more and more involved on Bulls' game each game!
Hopefully he will have a positive impact..

[Valor]

damn...we got trashed by Orlando and Boozer looks really, really off

hope he gets it going soon

[George7]

It was a false move getting Booze to start the game and play many minutes. Gibson should have started , while Booze would play some minutes as a reserve. This should be done on the next games as well, until he manages to fully recover and step up his game to his pre injury gaming days.

[Andrew]

I'm not too worried about Boozer at this point. It wasn't an impressive debut by any stretch of the imagination but let him heal, find his rhythm and eventually play more than 21 minutes; I'm confident he'll be productive in time. Tough opponent for him to make his debut against, especially if he's still not 100%.

Another tough one tomorrow against the Celtics. Will be watching, hopefully it's as competitive as the Lakers game last week at the very least.

[Andrew]

First, third and fourth quarters were tough to watch with matador defense at one end and some none-too-pretty offense at the other. Impressive effort in the second quarter though to make it a game at halftime, if only they'd been able to sustain that effort through the second half. Boozer didn't look too bad, couple of ugly shots and bad passes early on but he made a couple of jumpers and nice moves in the post too. Just have to be patient there I guess.

[George7]

Tough loss there. Hopefully the team can bounce and win some of the following games.
Boozer was better than it's debut,12 points are a good contribution,though ha could do better on rebounding. Hopefully we can keep the Division lead till the end of the season(though it's really early for those talks),in order to get a better seed.

[Axel The Great]

I'll post here and not on the Rockets thread since the Bulls won that battle. Epic OT game, can't tell you how disappointed I was when Derrick Rose hit the game-tying three at the buzzer. Rockets can blame themselves for the loss, going 2/4 on their last few free throws of the game really killed us. Better luck next game.

Still though, excellent win for the Bulls, they're offensive rebounds really made a big difference.

[Andrew]

phpBB [video]

Awesome. Wish I'd been able to catch this one, would've been nice after yesterday's second half-disappointment.

Lakers vs Bulls on ESPN Australia next week, hopefully they'll be able to avenge the loss in Los Angeles (though they didn't play too badly in that one until a floundering stretch in the fourth). In between now and then they've got the Thunder at home and the Cavs in Cleveland, both of which I'd say are winnable games.

[George7]

Amazing finish on this!! Clearly a great win,which came similarly with the loss at Denver. Missing free throws was crucial.

Rose was near a triple double along with 5 steals and a buzzer on 4th. Booze had 25 points and 9 rebounds,clearly finding his pace!

But the rest of the team is below their standards. Thibbs should fix that.

Miller should have stayed in Chicago. Yesterday he showed again how valuable he's to a team, despite missing the last shot.

[Andrew]

I certainly wouldn't have minded if they'd kept Miller around at a lower salary. Can't blame him for taking the best financial deal with a chance for more minutes though.

[air gordon]

did Neil Funk say ka-ka on the call?

I'll post here and not on the Rockets thread since the Bulls won that battle. Epic OT game, can't tell you how disappointed I was when Derrick Rose hit the game-tying three at the buzzer. Rockets can blame themselves for the loss, going 2/4 on their last few free throws of the game really killed us. Better luck next game.

Still though, excellent win for the Bulls, they're offensive rebounds really made a big difference.

would've been equally disappointing for bulls fans too as da bulls blew a 14pt lead. Lowry made some big shots to bring Houston back/give them the lead

[Axel The Great]

Can't say I'm too disappointed at the loss, though, we gave a big effort despite the fact that Courtney Lee was the only one capable of legitimately guarding Rose, and he hit his nose on Brad Miller's shoulder in the first half.

[air gordon]

yeh i remember when Lee was on NJ. he did a good job defending Rose when the bulls played the nets

according to espn's Relative Percent index- the bulls are tied for #1 in strength of schedule thus far...

It was a false move getting Booze to start the game and play many minutes. Gibson should have started , while Booze would play some minutes as a reserve. This should be done on the next games as well, until he manages to fully recover and step up his game to his pre injury gaming days.

i don't agree with this. what more "recoverying" does he have left to do? it's just a finger injury and he's been cleared to play and he doesn't even wear a protective brace.

there will be an adjustment period no matter what (and it gets magnified when they lose the first 2 games he plays. but keep i mind they those 2 losses were against the 2 best teams in the conference) there's no need to string it out by limiting his minutes. they only way you get over these chemistry issues is to give him as many minutes as he can hanldle.

[Andrew]

Agreed, as long as he's good to go by all means put him out there and work out any teething problems with him in the lineup sooner rather than later.

Bulls Watch correction: as of this post they're 10-8, not 10-9. I'm hoping that's not a premonition.

[Mandich]

Okay , I know it's a bit early , but do you think Bulls have chances of perhaps a 5th or 6th seed this season or is it still too early ?

[Andrew]

Considering they're currently the fourth seed and Boozer is back, I'd say so.

[Mandich]

Yes they are 10-8 and in fourth , damn the east sucks and thank God Chicago is in east

[puttincomputers]

did Neil Funk say ka-ka on the call?

yep he did.

his phrase for threes being hit has been "ka-ka-kaloop" ever since I listened to him during the 90s when he called games for the bulls on the radio.

[air gordon]

it sounded like he had a stroke and Stacey King had to snap him out of it

OKC is a tough matchup. Westbrook is playing out of his mind, durant destroyed them last time, and Jeff Green is a mismatch for whichever PF the bulls put on him. though Boozer should own in the post. the bulls are at home and are favored by 4.5 pts

the Central Division being pathetic gives the Bulls a good shot at being the #4 seed

[Andrew]

the Central Division being pathetic gives the Bulls a good shot at being the #4 seed

No doubt. Right now it looks like Indiana is the only threat, unless the Bucks can turn it around.

On a side note, Rose is the third player in Bulls history to register at least 30 points, 10 assists and five steals in a game. MJ did it eight times, Pip did it twice.

[Andrew]

They got the win. Tough night for Rose but nice outing for Boozer, 29 points and 12 rebounds in 36 minutes, 13/21 from the field.

[Mandich]

Rose and Boozer played a good game together , when they get used to each other they could be a real force