like his mind was elsewhere, or his head up his ass. The man needs to step up.

I’m neutral on Tyrus’ performance tonight. I will wait to see more, extended runs with him and Rose on the court together.

When I saw Noce tonight I saw the old, Skiles Bulls. I don’t want to see that era anymore.

I liked Hinrich’s shared ballhandling with Rose, especially when I saw the Larry Hughes version of it, but I don’t think Hinrich can start at the 2 anymore and I think it’s now from a defensive perspective. I saw Antoine Wright bully him and Kirk will have a hard time against physical 2 guards. And he still can’t shoot. I’d love him as the backup PG/combo guard, and he can foul to his heart’s content, but then I don’t know who to start at the 2 because I was underwhelmed with Thabo tonight, Hughes is not an option, and Ben is in the same boat as Kirk, with the trade-off of ballhandling for shooting.

Looks to me like Thabo and Noce are going to be fighting over Deng’s back-up minutes.

As for the scrub scrum, not much there. Washington scored fast and furious, but you’d like a point guard to get at least one assist in 14 minutes, right? At least he was trying. Main difference in this year’s rotation will be inserting Rose and how Gooden and Tyrus split minutes.

My notes.

I went to the game, and it was obvious the first time I saw him that he lost a lot of weight. No longer does he look like a bumbling oaf, and he seemed to be able to get up and down the court much easier. His baseline spin move late in the 4th was fantastic.

It remains to be seen if he’s made any strides defensively. He was the best player on the floor in the 4th quarter, but he’ll need to be able to defend his position against better competition to play consistently. If he can, I wouldn’t be surprised to Vinny name him the starter at some point this season.

And this happens every game when Tyrus plays a lot of minutes, this is the pick and pop, where Tyrus sets the pick for the ball handler and gets in the 18-20 foot range to receive the ball. Once he has the ball, he does not appear to be sure what to do. Usually what happens is, he fakes the pass stands there for a second and then takes the shot while his defender plays 5 feet off of him. Tyrus can hit this shot every once in a while but he misses his fair share, and since he is a big, the other big is at a disadvantage on the boards. In this situation, Tyrus should either roll towards the basket or take another one or two steps before he receives the ball so he has an easier shot. Or if he is stuck in the 20 foot range, Luol or whomever is on the wings have to cut towards the basket to at least give Tyrus the option of passing.

overall the Bulls looked very bad last night. I know it’s preseason, and I know we were missing 2 starter quality players in Noah and definately in Ben Gordon, but we really looked completely outmatched by the Mavs.

On the plus side, I did like little flashes of Derrick Rose’s skill set. He looked much better overall than his 10 and 5 assist and 6 turnover stat line would indicate…..it took him most of the first quarter to calm down, but there were moments where you could see the future.

I agree Noc added no value last night….but then again he had been injured in the Olympics and it is preseason, so there I give him a pass.

Deng didn’t seem to be able to hold his own against Josh Howard though…..which was disappointing given the offseason raves, but again it was just the preseason….

Tyrus looked a bit more comfortable in general out there, he didn’t have really any wow moments, though if Rose and him practice a bit more together, perhaps there will be something.

The defense especially of the starting lineup yesterday was god awful, Rose-Hinrich-Deng-Tyrus-Gooden looked slow, thin, weak, short against the Mavs, causing the Mavs to look like in a reg season game they easily could have beat us by 30 pts.

Kirk didn’t look bad, Antoinne Wright for some reason always plays well against us, and might not be a good matchup for Kirk for some reason (odd because Kirk can hold his own against the far superior D. Wade)….

The real bright spots:
Aaron Gray looked very solid tonight, displaying some very nice post moves. I was really impressed with him, and while he’s slow, if he keeps this up, he might challenge for some starts by mid season this year…..his offensive game looked very solid. He looked slightly quicker too, but maybe that’s because he looked so good on the offensive end. It was refreshing to see some real post moves out there.

Drew Gooden looked very good and out played Dampier at C. That was nice to see.

Bulls need to get more of the Tyrus-Deng-Hinrich triumvate, those 3 looked especially blah yesterday….

THe Bulls need to come in with energy and passion…..if they don’t have it this year, it’s because they just won’t be as good as I thought they had been.

A disappointing first act, but again it’s preseason.

On the Mavs side….Brandon Bass looked awesome in flashes. Dirk was as unguardable as ever. Kidd definately didn’t look washed up….Josh Howard looked like his former all star self…..and finally Gerald Green looked like he really will have some game to go with his incredible athleticism. THe Mavs looked very good tonight.

For some depth in the frontcourt. All of the sudden, Odom isn’t looking as bad to me. Although if he won’t come off the bench for the lakers, he isn’t coming off the bench for the Bulls.

But the lack of depth really showed up front without Noah. While everyone is patting Gray on the back, his rotations were awful on defense as were Gooden and Thomas. The Bulls need someone to protect the basket. Paging Mt. Mutumbo.

Darius Washington…….possibly the next A.I? :)
http://www.dwash.net/

If so, where?

Rose: Considering expectations ranged from 1) won’t be an average PG until 2011 to 2) will be an all-star this year and the second coming of CP3. I’d say we can fall somewhere closer to 2. I think my main takeaways were that he can definetley handle the ball against NBA pgs TODAY. He still can’t shoot. He can penetrate and kick, but can’t penetrate and score (effectively yet). He is the only Bull who can command help defense in any way shape or form. Expect a very bad game 2 from him followed by similar performances to his opener for the rest of preseason.

Hinrich: Looked VERY bad. Can’t shoot, can’t defend, can’t create and can’t handle the ball (can dribble but can’t create). Let him back up Rose and play combo guard.

Deng: Still doing his thing, played to the pace of a preseason game. The ‘goat’ makes him look older but is overall goofy.

Tyrus: Some people are bashing Tyrus, but I actually think he looked grood. He looked, for the first time, like he actually had a sense of the game and could adjust himself to the rhythm of play. He forced one jumper but overall looked good. You have to understand that he will not be able to drive until he can make his defender honor his shot. Bloggers are right that he should focus on rebounding and defense BUT with Noah back in the lineup he won’t need to carry that weight as much.

Gooden: Looked solid. The jujp shot was falling and he didn’t get many down low points. If he had gone 2/5 instead of 4/5, what would people be saying???

Thabo: Still not ready.

Hughes: Doesn’t get or care about playing within any system. Looked out of control, will be making 1-2MM per by 2010.

Gray: Classic example of a post player who has always relied on pure size as his major advantage. Anytime he matches up with an equally tall player he loses all effectiveness. If he was 2-3" shorter he wouldn’t be in the league. Still slow.

I think most of our problems in the backcourt stem from the fact that we don’t have anyone in the frontcourt to keep the other team honest. As a result, the only dependable offense we have is our guards diving into the lane.

Hinrich had a nice drive to the lane early in the game, and I’m pretty sure got the bucket and the foul, but after that he got really tentative again. As for his D, Antoine Wright is clearly just too big for him to guard. At the same time, he did a surprisingly good job on Howard in the third. especially considering how bad Howard tore us up early.

Rose obviously needs to work on his jumpshot and decision-making (less turnovers), but I think he’ll be fine with time. He also needs to put a little more effort in on the defensive end, but I’ll give him a pass on that b/c its preseason and I’d rather see him play than watch him on the bench in foul trouble.

Huges, Noc – please just sit down.

Tyrus – I wish i could be more optimistic, but it seemed to be just more of the same. Ridiculous amounts of energy and athleticism, but not yet refined. (I’m thinking specifically of the play where he missed a shot in the lane, got his own rebound, took another jumper and missed, but got fouled. Might want to work on solid defense as opposed to highlight reel defense. Blocking shots is nice and all, but he got blown by a few times.

Gooden – too many jumpshots. put your back to the basket for crying out loud.

Gray – will be a solid center off of the bench.

Lu – needs to be more aggressive. he’s an efficient scorer, and he needs to start calling for the ball.

(1) Trade him; or

(2) Bury him so deep on the bench that he never sees the light of day.

He is awful. He simply can’t be on the court. Ever.

Rose looked good. I thought Tyrus played fairly well.

Talk about ZERO chemistry,
Tom Dore-Stacey King…
I can’t believe that we gotta listen to them all year!
Maybe others here disagree, but I was
annoyed by these two all night.
Particularly annoying is listening to Dore’s
B.S., as he doesn’t describe the action taking place.
Discuss….
:-)