Slightly different story, but same ending: Defense, physical play, and another close Bulls victory

It’s a nice idea in theory to get another ballhandler out there, but Watson’s just not that good in that capacity.

I can think of several times he was fouled and I shouted “And one!”,but the refs didnt blow the whistle.

This whole team is built around moving the ball, and playing as a team, and no one has a bigger role in that than him with his passing out of the post

If he is trying to post up, or simply moving around Indiana is shading towards him a lot of the time. Boozer’s missed shots also have not been of the wide-open variety. My only complaint is the rate at which he picks up offensive fouls.

Must…stop…heat…of…the moment BS…

People proably hate Booz for not having an impact on offense consistently like Amare and Bosh and being Rose’s #2. But like you said when Noah was struggling Booz picked us up with his rebounds, gets steals when you late in the 2nd half lately, good passing big man (still can’t believe he saw KK in that one game can’t remember the team we played). Now while guys complain about his D people seem to forget, our Defense was already top 5 with an idiot as a coach we had no offense Booz is here for our offense we know he is bad on D, GarPaxDorf knows of his bad D, but he’s known for his rebounds and post scoring (while he’s struggling there) but I think he will play better as long he plays in attack mode like he did the last few games at the regular season.

Boozer actually played pretty good Defense tonight, and made some bigs plays on both ends down the stretch.

But I’m glad to read some support in Booze’s favor and this did give me some food for thought. I haven’t been reading in-game threads lately due to work asploding, but I can only imagine the onslaught that brought on this spirited defense.

For what it’s worth:

I get the defensive limitations, I get the need to have a pick and roll partner that he’s used to and who delivers the ball better, I get the rebounding that he provides. I think what I, and many others are responding to is that Boozer had played so much better this year, on this team. Booze was an automatic 20/10 guy until sometime shortly after the all-star break. Tonight he scored four points, had three turnovers, was blocked twice and while he did have 11 boards, I can’t remember more than one that was heavily contested. I’m sorry but that’s a crapfest, if not a shitshow.

Add to that the expectation (and current fulfillment?) of Booze’s crappy playoff rep, a massive contract in a city that already employs Alfonso Soriano on one of its sports teams, and Booze’s constant hope/prayer/dependance on bail out calls and failure to go up strong (just creates a perception of softness) and you can see how some might have arrived at vitriol.

To his credit, Booze has been by far the most entertaining Bull so far this postseason. It it’s a Bulls game anymore without at least two HEEEYYYs, and his yelling “GIMME THAT S***!” at a rebound is in the top five funniest pieces of nat sound I’ve ever heard at a game.

I think anyone rational realizes that the Bulls need Boozer to be good if they are to challenge for a championship. He filled a massive void at the 4 for Chicago, and even when he missed a week with that ugly ankle sprain it reminded just how important he is to this team.

He doesn’t need to do anything more than be who he’s always been, but so far against the Pacers (and TYLER HANSBROUGH for god’s sake), he has been far less than that.

“Boozer is a terrible rebounder”
 
Me- “He has 11? Leading the game so far?”
 
“Uhhh not the IMPORTANT rebounds!”
“Rebound stats can be overrated.”

WTF?

he’s had 2 shitty games out of 3, though.

if you see how he gets lazy on the defensive rebounds…a fuk it i give up

i love boozer..and i love lazy people

Then he completely turned to doo doo.

I’m quite worried that Boozer’s career heads in the same direction.

I’d hate Booz a whole lot less if he didn’t have an un-tradeable contract, which is currently seems like at the moment

All the positives you just outlined describe a role player and not a guy we are paying max salary for to be our second scoring option. Taj can also rebound and not bitch about doing the dirty work. If this is all we expect out of Carlos Boozer its a damning indictment on the contract we just handed him.

I lived in Utah for the last 5 years and what are you seeing is what pissed Utah fans off so much. Every year he would disappear in the playoffs particularly against the Lakers. That’s with DWill running that PnR you talked about. He still would log a no show come play off time. Go ask Utah fans about Carlos Boozer. The track record is there.

Add that to the hysterics, stupid offense fouls, turn overs, and the silly cheap shots and thats where the hate comes from.

and people were wondering why he doesnt put up a 20 PER and .58 TS%. as it stands hes got a 7 PER and .42 TS% for this series and that his production has been pathetic is largely his fault. his finishing has been vile, and its not like he hasnt had good looks.

And like Kobe, he hit the shot at the end and made everyone forget about the bad shots and misses that made such a heroic shot necessary in the first place.

but you really have to wonder about some of his decision making at times. When teams take away his athleticism with traps and things, and force him to use his brain to exploit defenses, he can make some pretty poor decisions. I’m sure that will change the longer he’s in the league (and big playoff games), but you really wonder how this will affect the team as we get deeper in the Playoffs. If we’re playing Miami and it’s the fourth quarter in a close game, what’s he gonna do when Wade and Chalmers blitz the shit out of him with Lebron waiting for him to carelessly fling the ball? That’s the scary thing

After that, not only did he stop calling Korver’s number but he compounded it by settling for awful jumpers. We definitely won’t see this game in Rose’s playoff highlight reel.

If he played Korver more coaches would figure out ways to constantly defend Korver out of the game.

It’s throwing Korver in different situations that I think keeps Korver and the team fresh perhaps.

But yes Korver’s one of the best signings of the summer.

I always knew he was more than a Kapono pure shooter, but damn get that guy more confidence….and his defense isn’t nearly as bad as his rep.

I can’t remember the last time I was this angry about a basketball game. It’s infuriating.

I’ve spent plenty of time there, and sure there’s some great people, but it doesn’t take much more than a breakfast at a Cracker Barrel off I-65 to realize there’s a whole bunch of extra chromosomes in play.

And as much as Thibs is complaining about retaliation being bad in the media, I don’t believe it. He says the playoffs always have hard fouls and physical play, indeed they do. He said nothing wrong with that (though elbows and muggings aren’t exactly meaning that). So I don’t see how bringing the fight back to Foster or the others should be a problem. I saw him put KT and Taj in the game right after the hard Derrick foul. I think at the least he wants us to be just as physical as Indy. I doubt he would mind retaliation for more probs Sat. but he isn’t gonna say so in the media. Indy is going to come out swinging Saturday and we have to match being that physical. Not necessarily retaliate…but at least be damn physical and not mind throwing a few Thomas bows around.

Now roll it!

He can’t foul Rose if he has a broken jaw!

Just sayin’

It would be nice if they could move the ball without turning it over.

In the series so far Boozer has 12 field goals, 10 turnovers and 3 assists. I don’t care what people say, that is on him and he needs to improve.

They do play defense.

Bulls were lucky they played a team that is so bad at closing games. The Bulls have been getting bullied all series. If this was Boston the elbows would be flying. You can get away with it now.

He made some good points and some meh points but he can almost get away with saying Boozer doesn’t run back hard enough. I like it.

wasn’t advocated retaliating. He was saying during the telecast that if the Pacers are going to foul the Bulls hard, then on the other end, when the Pacers are going for layups/dunks etc you can’t let them make the basket and get an and1. The Bulls allowed a couple of those because they committed “soft” fouls instead of making sure they Pacers guys couldn’t get the shot off. He wasn’t saying that the Bulls should commit dirty and/or borderline flagrant fouls. At least that was how I interpreted his words during the broadcast. Stacey was the one, imo, that was advocating the Bulls should fight dirty with dirty.

It sure is. Double digit rebounds in every game as well, even tho in the 1st two he only played 30 minutes. It was nice to see him get a few more [minutes] last night (35). Taj has been playing well, wouldn’t mind seeing him get a few more minutes.

But he’s up there so long, it looks like a charge.

Nice to see the NBA is looking at it with the refs just blowing us off as a young team needing to prove ourselves to them.

Gotta love/hate talk radio looking for something to mock or get ratings from. Stacey is an easy target lately with how he’s been cheering us.

They typically announce MVP late in Round 1, or right before Round 2. They try to do the announcement a day or so before a home game for the winning player (same with the other awards) so they can have an immediate celebration @ the home stadium.

If the Bulls sweep in Indiana, they might wait until the start of Round 2, can’t say for sure.

This one does

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110422/SPORTS04/110422022/2-hard-fouls-by-Pacers-Foster-upgraded-flagrant?odyssey=mod|newswell|img|IndyStar.com|p

This seems utterly meaningless. They upgraded them and now Foster can be suspended if he accumulates enough flagrant points? with two flagrants in the game? wimpy and stupid. It’s just throwing a bone to acknowledge how they screwed up to the Bulls and doing nothing at the same time. To me this is like when the league admitted the goaltending missed call on OKC.

They just want to placate fans and saying we screwed up but aren’t gonna do anything about it just makes it worse to me.

But I would say comparing Foster to Boozer or Noah is homerish. If you want to compare something it would be Thomas not them. Of course you like Foster playing the enforcer role. It helps slow down Rose and that’s indeed what you need. I have to admit I like KT filling that role for us when needed.

I was surprised he didn’t get the flagrant for that one. It’s somewhat of a compliment, though. Rose is so good that throughout the playoffs teams are going to keep trying to knock his ass out. Jordan had to deal with the same thing.

The refs are just overall terrible. There were two plays pretty close together yesterday where I’m almost positive Rose stepped out of bounds with the ball and then Hansbrough did the same thing with officials looking directly at both of them. Seriously? Calling it when players are out of bounds has to be the easiest thing to do.

I’m scared of playing the Bulls once Rose really does start getting star calls. He already goes to the line 20 plus times a game on his own merit. It’ll just be insane once the refs help him out. If Reggie Miller taught him how to flop appropriately he’d be impossible to guard.