A Daily Babble Production
The home page for Blog a Bull features a tag line that reads "chronicling the odyssey of Vinny Dell Coacho." Earlier in the season, it was something to the effect of "maybe hiring a rookie coach wasn't such a good idea." Said rookie coach just happened to run out of timeouts at the end of regulation and draw the ire of Bulls fans in each of the first two games of their series with the Celtics this week. With all that in mind, I couldn't resist offering site proprietor your friendly BullsBlogger a chance to take out some angst regarding his team's head man when we chatted about the outlook for the Bulls after a split in Beantown...
SW: Give me a feel for the mood among the fans in Chicago right now. How have expectations changed after splitting two games in Boston?
yfBB: The mood is always a bit angst-filled, but expectations are high. Not as much because of seeing what the Bulls can do but what the Celtics can't. Everyone expected them to lose something with Garnett but not this much, and the loss of Leon Powe is huge. And Pierce has not been impressive at all.
SW: Game 2: Demoralizing for the Bulls to come so close but let a five-point lead slip away in the final minutes, or just an added confidence boost knowing that this team could very well be heading home up two games to none?
yfBB: Definitely demoralizing. These games were played so evenly, and the entire series looks to be that close. That part is encouraging. But I think the home games will be close, too, so letting one slip, whether it's game two or game four, is tough.
SW: Just for fun, your top three VDN complaints from the first two games?
yfBB: Fun for you, you mean. I'll keep it to the playoff games. There are general complaints that are well (some would say too well) documented, including spending an entire season calling Kirk Hinrich 'Kurt'.
1. Playing Brad Miller for too long of stretches in the fourth quarter.2. Running out of timeouts so the ball can't be advanced on the final possession.3. Odd inclusions of Tim Thomas (game one) and Lindsey Hunter and Linton Johnson (game two) into games when Thomas should only be used in an emergency and the other two in only extreme, team bus accident extreme, emergencies.(That last one was a reach compared to number one and number two.)
yfBB: The defensive rebounding has to be better. They won't be a good defensive rebounding team, but they can't get annihilated like they were in game two. I'd also like for some balance to be achieved where the bigs can block shots without being out of position for the loose ball. It seems like while the Bulls shot-blocking has been impressive, sometimes their bigs get too overanxious and completely commit to altering the shot while abandoning their defense and rebounding positions elsewhere on the court. A similar problem is happening with Glen Davis being open for jumpers. Still a shot I don't mind seeing from him, but they have to at least make some effort to close out.
yfBB: It's somewhere in between. Assuming that he can duplicate his game one performance is a bit unfair, though I expect him to be more aggressive than he was in game two, when some unfortunate fouls had him on the bench earlier than usual. Also, his game two performance was a bit suppressed by (correctly) letting Ben Gordon take over the 4th quarter.
Ben Gordon: pay the manRajon Rondo: very good; Derrick Rose's defense makes him look even betterDerrick Rose: the infallible point god; ignore that comment about defense I just madeBrad Miller: absolutely love what he brings, just wish Vinny used him betterBennett Salvatore: Celtics fans are huge whiners considering their franchise success.St. Patrick's Day jerseys: confusing
yfBB: Bulls 100, Celtics 92.