Bulls Sleepwalk in Revealing Loss to Bobcats
With their playoff position hanging in the balance, the Bulls may as well have stayed at home in Chicago. They trailed by eight after the first quarter and would never get closer the rest of the way.
Vinny Del Negro’s squad was out shot, out defended, and out hustled by Larry Brown’s Bobcats, who have now won four in a row and are just a game behind the Bulls in the standings.
The Bulls' players and coaches will probably point to this loss as another example of the Bulls not being focused against lowly teams like the Bobcats, but something else is at work here.
The Bulls just aren’t as good as the Bobcats.
Derrick Rose couldn’t defend Raymond Felton or DJ Augustin, Joakim Noah couldn’t defend Emeka Okafor, and Vinny Del Negro couldn’t coach with Larry Brown.
When the other team has the advantage at center, point guard, and head coach, you are going to lose most of the time.
The blame can be spread more widely than that though.
John Salmons, in his first start as a Bull was awful, shooting 4-13 for just nine points and one assist. Ben Gordon led the Bulls with just 14 points on 6-15 shooting and five turnovers.
Joakim Noah had four points and five rebounds. The list goes on and on. Derrick Rose was ineffective on either end of the floor, and Kirk Hinrich was no better.
The lone bright spot was Tyrus Thomas’s double-double, but he also turned the ball over three times and only shot two free throws.
The Bulls stunk.
It is very interesting to see the difference in coaching style between future Hall of Famer Larry Brown and future broadcaster Vinny Del Negro.
Brown was on his feet the entire game, hollering out plays and barking at his team. Put simply, Larry Brown actually coaches his team.
Vinny Del Negro, on the other hand, like during so many other Bulls losses, just sat on the beach looking clueless and miserable.
The Bulls have not only become maddeningly inconsistent, but also downright bad in their last four games.
If you take away Saturday’s miracle comeback, they really should have lost their last four games by very wide margins. It might be time to accept the fact that the Bulls, all of them, are just not all that good.
If you want me to say that that excludes Derrick Rose, because he can do no wrong, well then you aren’t watching the games. His inconsistency mirrors that of the team, and while he will surely be great one day, he is not great yet.
His defense is an increasing liability, and his shooting is up and down to the extent that he cannot be counted on yet to produce the bulk of the team’s offensive production.
I’m not ripping Rose, but just pointing out that he his part of the reason why the Bulls have struggled to gain ground in the playoff race.
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