As your most optimistic post in a long long time.

I can’t argue with it though =)

box score doesnt look too shabby, and matt here states that hinrich was definetly alright in the 4th…the game thread however had a completely different vibe from it, so i was thinking another pacer game….althought judging from where the negative comments were coming from maybe i shouldnt read much into them. I guess ill watch teh replay and make up my own mind, but hey we beat the magic in a very nice manner, were they not trying or were we really that good?

you gave him Tim Thomas’s stats!

Playing less minutes than everyone who stepped on the court.

I like him backing up Noah, it’s actually a formidable center rotation now.

I now think Vinny is a coaching visionary and not just an idiot. Sure I questioned him benching Derrick the Miami, Denver, Milwaulke, and Indiana games during important junctures in the 4th, but after tonight I think we are seeing a coach that comes around every 20 years.

Iba, Auerbauch, Wooden, Smith, …. Del Negro.

Watching the Bulls and many other NBA teams since 90 I realized the 4th quater sub pattern was sit your starter from about the 12-8 or 7 min mark of the 4th. In the 90s this was the Bobby Hansen or Judd Budshler time while Mike or Scottie rested. Kobe, Shaq, Duncan, Lebron, KG, and other stars have also sat during these times. If the starters helped the team to a 15+ lead by the 3 min mark the coach would take them out for applause and knee icing time. Let Randy Brown jack up shots in garbage time.

Tonight I actually wasn’t mad for Vinny sitting Ty Deng and Derrick the whole 4th because I thought, " Maybe he knows Orlando is gone quit soon cause the Bulls are shooting so well and he can rest Deng and Rose for tommorrow", When Derrick came back in with 245 left up 17 I actually weighed the pros and cons of con- Derrick blowing out his knee pro- Vinny fired tommorrow morning.

Whatever this season brings remember that you are seeing coaching decisions that go totally against the grain from what was taken place in the past 20 or more years.

I just don’t understand the bad rap they get from the Chicago media. Boers and Bernstein come to mind. I like the show but I hate their Bulls talk. They dog these guys whenever I listen.

The other day I listened Bernstein was complaining about the way Tyrus blocks shots? I guess I don’t understand the hate.

When I watch the game I see good things but when I listen to the radio I hear bad things about them.

Anyways great win the Bulls are pretty deep and that will help against a team like Cleveland if they meet up with them in the playoffs.

he does know what he’s doing, and he does it fast. He has some good footwork; saying it was goofy, which reminds me of Ben Wallace’s constant shaking of hid body while posting up, doesn’t do him justice.

But his FTs are the ugliest thing I’ve seen in my life.

‘’come on TT’’ and then clapped. Tyrus kinda had a slow start. I just thought it was kinda cool. You don’t get to hear what they say to each other on the court.

That would be cool if like HBO did the games. You could just have everyone with a mic. What do they really say. Oh but Skiles would form a strike.

Then I would love to see like 360 camera angles. Like on NBA 2K9. You choose the camera angle and you could switch it when you please. Now I’m just getting ahead of myself.

i’m about to pass out but i just had to let out a Ric Flair-type ‘Wooooo!’ over this win.

man, now that sb is partnered with Yahoo, maybe they can get this mobile posting going for us iPhone users. it’d be easier to keep up with the discussions, like while out and about, or at work. Arg!!

A few interesting things about the rotations (not counting the 2:47 of garbage time at the end):

- It was a 3 guard rotation for the entire game: Rose – 35, Gordon – 35, Hinrich – 26. Its hard to argue with Hinrich getting that much burn in a 3-man rotation. Maybe you could tweak it slightly so its 38/38/20, but its pretty close to good
- Salmons got all of his time as the backup SF – there were always two other guards on the court with him.
- Noah got all his time at Center. There were some thoughts that you might see Miller and Noah on the court at the same time, but it didn’t happen.

Overall, this ended up being our depth chart:

PG – Rose, Hinrich
SG – Gordon, Hinrich
SF – Deng, Salmons
PF – Thomas, Thomas
C – Noah, Miller

I don’t think anyone would complain with that rotation, now Vinny just needs to adjust the minutes correctly (please, please, God).

‘I thought we had a good rhythm; Kirk [Hinrich] was doing an excellent job,’’ Del Negro said. ‘’We had good control, a nice lead. So I’m not going to break the rhythm of something to get somebody extra minutes. The job is to win the game. That was the decision I made. It worked out well.’’

Maybe he’s a low talker, but I had never heard him talk on defense before. He was actually communicating with Rose to cover his blind side.

Good to see Tim getting good minutes, producing, and mixing it up with his new teammates.

I love our bench now. This 9 man rotation is special.

that the reasoning for some of the extra minutes for the bench players coincides with the 4 games in 5 night stretch this weak. Unfortunately, with Vinny I wouldn’t be suprised if that wasn’t the case

Absolutely foolish-lookin’ on a couple of plays.

You captured most of my reasons for smiling today. Brad Miller coming off the bench instead of Gray is an enormous upgrade. Tim Thomas is turning around my skepticism. We are incredibly deep. When TT takes a jumper I’m now glad verses cringing. Rose’s jump shot , which was suposed to be his achilli’s heel is great. Please, please let’s play two straight games like we did last night and win a big one tonight.

After they showed the game’s highlights on NBA TV last night, Payton said he’d parachute from the top of the arena if the Bulls made the playoffs. Looked disgusted when Webber insisted that the Sacramento trade actually helped the team.

Stan Van Gundy seemed intent on packing the lane against Rose, and we therefore saw very few ankle-breaking drives. But what he didn’t plan for was Rose taking what they gave him and hitting that mid-range jumper with ease.

And unlike the Pacers game, Vinny actually left Rose out there long enough to consistently make that outside jumper.

It seemed that the Magic scouting report must’ve been to prevent all the Bulls from driving, and dare all the Bulls to shoot, because the new guys in particular (as pointed out by Stacey King and as pointed out above) were standing and shooting with the Magic player standing there too.

It’ll be interesting to see how the league adjusts to the better than average ability of these Bulls to consistently knock down outside shots.

I was pleased with everyone’s performance for the most part. I really liked Brad’s defense on Howard, which involved disrupting him before he caught the ball in the low post, causing him to be out of rythym a lot. That fucker travels and elbows the shit all over the place too, and maybe gets it called on him 1-4 times.

But lets not get TOO high on this win…the Magic live and die by the 3 for the most part, and last night went 9-26. A few more of those go in and we’re still bitching about Vinny playing the bench players way too much, which he’s still doing.

Derrick and TT just continue to impress!