Most of his three-point attempts came from good ball movement. I can live with that.

I think that’s the big point here: even in games they’ve won, they’ve never played so cohesively. Last night everybody – from Noah to Gordon to Hughes – played within their roles, and it was awesome to watch.

There were two other reasons for our success I thought were cool:

1. We ran a play to break the stupid trap-Rose-at-halfcourt thingy. We brought a cutter to the top of the key and got layups, made an easy entry pass, then naileded wide-open three pointers and in general just killed them. Kudus to VDN and Co. for recognizing what teams were doing and implementing a counter during the 3 day layoff. Secondly, VDN used his timeouts well. After the 1st-quarter lapse in transition D he called a timeout and fixed it; ditto in the 4th, when Philly crawled to within 14 and there was a slight hint of a momentum shift. I’ve ragged on VDN more than most, but he did a good job tonight, and it was great to see.

2. Defense. Noah was actually great against Brand while his conditioning allowed – frustrating him, blocking a shot, and making quick rotations on the interior. Ben Gordon showed once again that he’s not the bad defender he was during his first two years. The 6’6 Andre Igudala managed all of 3/9 with 4 TOs. And after the first few minutes the transition D improved in general.

Players in their roles? Coaching? Defense?

Good stuff.

Really exciting after we just seemed to let the Spurs take over the last game that we bounced back and absolutely annihilated the 76ers after we slept through the first quarter.

Larry Hughes is actually showing some signs that perhaps he might be able to play some team ball, having taken only 1-2 stupid shots a night the past 3 straight games….hopefully he keeps that up, because when he plays a team game he can be effective.

The concerns I have are Noah’s conditioning….I mean seriously, maybe he has emphasema, because he doesn’t look horribly out of shape or anything, but 5 minutes into the game and he’s going from effective to a waste, and his transition D might just be worse than Aaron Gray’s, and Noah’s too athletic to be in that kind of a comparison.

THe other concern which is more concerning is our SF spot. A position I’ve always thought was a strength of ours with Deng and Nocioni suddenly the past few games is looking like a weakness. Deng tried to be the man early in the game last night, and that’s the point where we got killed. Thaddeus Young annihilated him, I know some of that was poor transition D when guys didn’t switch (Noah) but also Deng just hasn’t looked like Deng. He rebounded a bit int he second half, but still Luol’s got to step up.

And Andres who always played with his heart on his sleeve suddenly is playing only as a cheap shot artist…..I’m a Nocioni fan, and think he can do a lot of little things to helpt he squad, but this year and the last 2-3 games, Noc has only been out there to foul….he needs to step it up too.

Larry Hughes might end up getting more a role as a SF if this keeps up, and if we see the Larry of the last 2 games or so, that’s not awful, but if we start seeing Larry of the first 30 games as a Bull that’s devastating especially when we have 2 talented SF’s who have to bring their game every day…

Still 3-4 ain’t bad, especially when we could have and should have maybe pulled out at least 1 of the Nuggetts or Spurs games without us completely collapsing under road pressures…and getting out of our game.

I was at the Dallas which was Deng’s best game of the year. He did a great jpob on Nowitski defensively and seemed to have the focus of 2006-07 back in his eyes. Last night was his third game back from injury, and he may not be completely healthy yet. He’s got a bigger adjustment than anyone to Rose’s game because of his cutting style. I see both he and Rose adjusting game by game. I think he’ll be fine if he stays healthy. I have far less confidence in the progress of Thomas and Noah.

I missed the Philly game because I had to work. So I hadn’t seen the Rose crossover until I followed the link in this thread.

Wow. Sweet merciful demi-gods of the lower joints, please have mercy on dear Miller’s liga-soultendon.

and I like the way this Bulls team is competing right now. They’ll have the occassional and they’ll look like a trainwreck more often than may be tolerable, but they’re winning games and at a frequency that I did not anticipate this early in the season. My only explanation is that Rose is much better earlier in the season than I conservatively projected (though I did forecast a 17.5/ 6.5/ 4.5 overall season for him).

I think Deng will come around. I think BG will be there all year. Gooden I’m not too sure about, but I’m bullish on the Bulls.