Rockets 107, Bulls 100: Yao Ming is, um, a problem

when I saw Noc guarding Yao I sat there in awww…… like this is awful :(

I could understand Thomas with a double team mentallity but NOC?

Noc gaurding Yao. I knew he would get his moneys worth on those fouls. Here’s the thing.

The Bulls arent good enought ot miss 11 free throws and beat a semi gimpy decent teams.

Also this is gonna hurt alot of peoples feelings but D-Rose has got to start playing better defense. Its getting bad, I feel like im watching BG out there the way his defender just walks past him.

Noah played like crap, he tried i guess so give him credit but Noah would have been much better off trying to front Yao every play and take his chances with TT’s weak side help and Yao is slow enough that maybe Noah couldve gota few blocks from the back side. To try and play Yao straight up in the post was just a bad very bad decision.

TT was on sportscenter top 10 last night getting dunked on, thats gotta piss him off seeing old man McGrady dunking on him..(Looked like TT slipped or mistimed it though)

BG had 20 points but probably should had more. He didnt score a bunch of those till late. He needs to be more consistent.

VDN again played games with the match-ups (he cant afford to do that yet) he’s just not good of a coach to be doing that.

I wasnt expecting to win but i thought we had a bit of a perfect storm brewing (Bulls playing well granted against bad teams, Rockets looking well Gimpy) but it wasnt meant to be. I think we win tonight and all those good feelings come back… We should smoke these chumps tonight without CP3. Stay tuned….

Matchups everything coach can play Deng at the 4 when Yao checks out. Their front line is Scola and Landry when that happens. Both players are just going to set high screens in the half court and in transition just run to the front of the rim to exploit position.

Then you get a 5 man that’s built to attack the rim. Rose, Gordon, Thabo, Deng, Thomas. There’s no shot blocking threat in the paint. The opponent is nearly in the penalty already. Attack the rim.

All in all, what the coaching staff didn’t do.

…as it was preceeded by dumb play throughout the first 3 quarters. His usual hacking, fouling instead of playing D, and losing his man were very prevalent all game. He doesn’t need to play anywhere close to 27 min…especially if neither TT or Thabo are in foul trouble or aren’t hurt.

VDN’s rotations were horrid.

He was trying to block too many shots which hurt his weakside rebounding position…he has to learn when to go for the block and when to stay on the ground to box out and hold his defensive position.

think the bulls played exceedingly good fun basketball in the first half.

Then Noc came in and Vinnie started playing cutsie with the lineups.

Bam no more cohesion in defensive rotations.

Maybe VDN’s hair is getting in the way of him understanding what’s going on in front of him.

Still a VERY fun first half to watch. which is what matters to me the most as this team is starting to actually look like envisioned for the first time.

I mean that Vinny was probably thinking to pull Yao out of the paint on defense with Noc’s ability to stretch the floor, opening driving lanes and such (I don’t mean that VDN was looking to offend people). Of course, this is wrong-headed, as any gains Noc gets on the offensive end (if any) are more than negated when he’s guarding someone 7’13". I would give Vinny the excuse that with Noah fouled out, anybody we put on Yao is a huge mismatch, so might as well try to get some benefit on the other end, but as Matt pointed out, this is why you have a guy like Gray on the roster.

 Nocioni went into some kinda hyper hacking compulsions. Yao just laughs. By the way that was the 4th time this season that T-mac,Yao,Artest and the Duke player have all been in together….why does it seem T-Mac always comes back against the Bulls? Is there some kind of hate from the Krause years left over?

no showings of blatant incompetence. That’s a major victory, as the Bulls could have gone into shell-shocked mode, as they so often did before the Chairman’s comments. Yes, a lot of their baskets came in a flurry at the end of the game, meaning that the game was not as close as the score indicated, but I’m one of those guys who believes that the end-of-the-game offensive flurry is better than ending the game having trouble scoring, even when it’s a loss.

I’m wondering, though, if anyone else saw how bad Ben Gordon got smacked around with (predictably) no foul being called on multiple drives to the hoop in the 2nd half? I feel bad for Ben, because if that was Kirk or Noc, I have no doubt that VDN and/or the Bulls organization would have their backs. Call me a cynic, but I’d be surprised if they would do the same for Ben.

Just a couple of other points:
- How about Tyrus hitting that 3? Not that I want him incorporating that into his repertoire on a consistent basis, but he definitely looked natural.
- Tyrus had a bunch of spectacular blocks, and should have had more, if not for the fact that they occurred after a foul was called on another defender, or they were incorrectly called goal tending.
- For as much as I like to hate on T-Mac being soft, he flipped the switch at times to show that he’s still head and shoulders above Deng. Specifically, in his ability to instantly make space, like 5 feet, in order get a clean look, no matter how closely Deng or Sefolosha tried to guard him.
- Noah had his hands full, but I have no sympathy for how he continues to bring the ball down around his waist before going up strong. I like him as a player, but man, that guy is so frustrating.

ben getting hacked badly alot. Maybe the refs hate him or something. Happens atleast a few times every game. Those refs last night sucked though. I knew it before the game even started. They are all young crappy refs. Ive seen them screw the Bulls before. Guess what it will happen again.

Kirk Hinrich was a big reason the Bulls lost. At one point he threw the ball to nobody and then missed two consecutive jumpers all while his own man was scorching 3’s. Or Nocioni’s dumb foul before the end of the half.