Point Blank – January 14
Why couldn’t the Bulls guard the Magic?...More on why Duke can’t guard the ACC…Will Rick Carlisle carry a white flag to the arena…
The shot-making difficulties for Derrick Rose has been a recent topic here on a couple of occasions, particularly because his inability to get the ball through the nets was greatly impacting the overall Chicago flow. But then there was Monday, when Rose was 8-15 from the field vs. Orlando (though still just 1-5 beyond the arc), scoring 18 points and dishing seven assists as the Bulls rang up 114 on Orlando.
And lost…
Which now drops them to 1-8 ATS in the last nine games that Rose has played, falling beneath the market expectations by 103.5 points in regulation in the process, a robust 11.5 per outing. The Magic rolled to 121 points, connecting on a remarkable 41-63 of their two-point attempts, despite not having topped 107 in regulation all season, and entering Monday’s game on an 0-6 slide in which they averaged only 90 points per game. At tipoff, the markets were projecting Orlando’s target to be right at that same count of 90 (based on the closing Line/Total); the Magic reached 91 when Victor Oladipo made a layup with 0:53 remaining in the third quarter.
The 114 for Chicago was the most the team had scored in regulation and lost since a 122-116 defeat vs. Dallas back in March of 2010. But back in March of 2010, Tom Thibodeau had not yet become head coach. Since then there has been a standard of excellence on the defensive end of the court that had been the NBA’s collective best over his first four seasons. But not now. While a big part of that recent ATS slide could be tied to the Rose shooting slump, and the way it had dragged the offense down, the defense was simply awful vs. Orlando, part of a general trend that now begins setting off alarms this deep into the season.
Let’s take a look at the Thibodeau years, based on PP100 allowed, and where the Chicago defense ranked league-wide, then compare it to the season to date -
2010-11 97.4 (#1)
2011-12 95.3 (#1)
2012-13 101.3 (#5)
2013-14 97.8 (#2)
2014-15 101.7 (#10)
That is a most pronounced drop, but instead of getting better the Monday loss represented the worst game of the season. And Thibodeau’s post-game commentary indicated that he had seen enough -
“We gotta decide what we’re going to be. If we’re going to come in and just try to outscore people, we’re not going anywhere. I know that doesn’t work. We’re going to have to bring a lot more intensity and the only you bring a lot more intensity is gotta work a lot harder. It’s really that simple.’’
But it was not just the coach. From Pau Gasol - “Defensively, we struggled. There was no energy, no aggressiveness, no engagement from our team. So we’ve got to improve.” And Taj Gibson - "Some nights we're good, some nights it's unbearable to watch. ... We have to change our mindset and get back hungry. We've got to have that dog mentality again."
A major question, of course, is why did that mentality drift away in the first place? Getting Rose healthy again and adding Gasol in theory should have brought a strong collective buy-in. That makes tonight’s setting vs. Washington a major one to put under the microscope – was Monday the true rock-bottom that they can respond from, especially with an added revenge motive after being whipped 102-86 by the Wizards on Friday? Or is there simply something missing in the defensive chemistry that was not easy to identify as the season began?
About Last Night…
This week began with a take helping to break down the Duke struggles in those recent ACC games vs. Wake Forest and N. C. State, noting the lack of size, experience and toughness around the basket. But as it turns out, those were only appetizers in comparison to the 90-74 main-course whipping Miami dealt the Blue Devils in Durham on Tuesday. The Hurricanes scored both inside and out, shooting 51.8 percent for the game, and the commentary afterwards spoke volumes. Miami HC Jim Larranaga wanted a physical approach, and he got it.
First, from the HC – “Our goal was to set at least one, if not two or three, ball screens on every possession.” Those screens forced Duke to play off of physical contact, which the Blue Devils struggled to do, and opened up room for Angel Rodriguez to turn in a fabulous all-around game, with 25 points, five assists, four rebounds and five steals. He was in his comfort zone all night – “We felt like it was a great matchup. We felt they were going to let us do what we like to do.”
In a span of three days, Duke allowed 177 points in losing a pair of games outright, falling to the market expectations by a shocking 52.5. For all the talk of how many McDonald’s All-Americans are on the roster, the Blue Devils are not a candidate to bounce right back, which is how the markets treat many good teams off of a loss, and Amile Jefferson’s post-game take shows how fragile this bunch is – “Our backs got against the wall, and it was tough. They just kept knocking the wind out of us.” That can happen to even the most talented of players and teams when experience and physical toughness is lacking. They have the tools to work through this, but it is going to be a long process, not something that you should expect them to solve quickly (especially with trips to Louisville, Notre Dame and Virginia coming up over the remainder of the month).
In the Sights…
Could there be a “White Flag” setting on the Wednesday NBA board? Sometimes coaches are put into a position in which it is better for their full-season purposes to simply let a game go, and Rick Carlisle is presented with such a challenge this evening.
Carlisle was already facing one of the NBA’s toughest scheduling combinations, a game at the altitude of Denver after having to play on the west coast the night before, which also means losing an hour in making the transition. But the opening act to the sequence did not play out favorably, with the geriatric Maverick starting lineup getting pushed to the max before escaping 108-104 in OT at Sacramento. Instead of getting a chance to work through his rotation, Carlisle was forced to extend minutes to his better players, and essentially went all-in to rally from 10 down with 4:11 remaining in regulation for the gut-out victory, one that can be as much assigned to the “what the Kings did wrong down the stretch” folder as to what the Mavs did right.
Now examine the minutes for the starting five, and note the season rank for those stints -
Tyson Chandler 43:53 (#1)
Monta Ellis 40:06 (#3)
Dirk Nowitzki 38:26 (#3)
Rajon Rondo 38:14 (#1)
Chandler Parsons 36:32 (#4)
All of that gets magnified because #716 Denver not only brings momentum on a four-game win streak, but the Nuggets also have not played since last Friday at Sacramento. That means a chance to build off of that momentum on the practice court, and to have a level of energy and freshness that the visitors will struggle to match. And to add an additional level of intrigue to the setting, these teams meet in a rematch in Dallas on Friday, just another day in another place for the Mavericks, who are in the midst of a run of 22 straight games with venue changes. As such, even if Carlisle does try to have his team go hard early, should the game begin to get away, he could decide that saving his best counters vs. the Nuggets until Friday is the smarter way to work through a season.
This Week at Point Blank
Monday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – Weekend Starting Five
Tuesday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – Divisional Playoff Edition