Luol Deng led all scorers with 18 points, shooting 9-of-11 from the field. A trio of players put in 13 points: Rip Hamilton, Nate Robinson and Nazr Mohammed, who achieved a double-double by also hauling down 12 boards. There was also solid play from Joakim Noah with 10 points. The Bulls' 32-13 third quarter out did the Grizzlies' 23-11 fourth, assuring that no loss would come on this night.
The starters don't seem to have missed a beat, which is good news. As for Bench Mob 2.0, I'll give them a passing grade, but they were far from perfect. I like that Mohammed and Robinson had solid debuts in Bulls uniforms. I hope they can put up those numbers regularly when the games count. However, I'm more interested in how that group functioned as a whole. It was clear in the first half that they'll need some time to become consistent. They struggled at times, failing to make shots from many angles and looking somewhat lethargic.
Even so, I won't be too harsh on anybody since these games are merely scrimmages. Fesenko, Jaric and Allen are names that had zeros in the scoring column at the end. But since they all have long shots of making the cut, they're not really worthy of criticism either. If you want to question their value to the team, by all means, but don't throw them under the bus for doing nothing. Just relax and enjoy some basketball that has no merit until the regular season causes real stress.
The Bulls will travel to Assembly Hall in Champaign on Friday to play a "home" game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The bench will probably see even more time. And Thibs, maybe you can get Andre Emmett in there? Just throwing that out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment