Buckled

How my post tonight was going to go:  it was a typical night at the office for the Bulls as the offense got hot at the right times and the defense cracked down when they needed to.  They cruised to an easy victory over the Milwaukee Bucks coming off an underwhelming Circus Trip and regained first place in the Central.

How my post tonight will actually go:  what seemed like a typical night at the office for the Bulls turned into disaster as the offense shut down and the defense got overwhelmed by the Milwaukee Bucks' bench at the worst possible time.  They lost 93-92 following a 27-point third quarter lead and dropped a game below .500 as well as 1 1/2 games behind the first-place club in the Central.

The Bulls won the first three quarters by a collective 17 points.  Then, the Bucks proceeded to outscore their hosts by 18 in the last frame, just enough to complete the collapse.  At times during the game, I felt it was kind of dull and wished for some more interesting play.  Unfortunately, I got more than I wanted:  a run that not even the 1992 Bulls had to go on to close out the Trail Blazers in the NBA Finals that year.  Like that game, the winning team's bench was responsible for the outcome.  With Scott Skiles using the same five guys for the final quarter-plus and not one from the starting lineup, the Bucks shocked the Bulls and the United Center faithful.  Whether this surprising start by them holds up remains to be seen, but they deserve the top spot in the Central at the moment.  It was on the line and they showed they're not ready to give it up.  At least their second unit did.

Here's a list of names you won't forget anytime soon along with their point totals:  Ersan Ilyasova (18), Beno Udrih (11), Ekpe Udoh (11), Doron Lamb (8) and Mike Dunleavy (6).  Okay, maybe saying you won't forget them is a bit of a stretch.  Or a humongous stretch. "Who are these guys?" you're probably asking.  Well, I'm not going to pretend to know either.  This isn't a Bucks blog and the club has few players of note.  But I do know Ilysaova had been struggling.  Too bad that slump had to be broken at the expense of the Bulls.

Until the collapse was completed, a main focus of this game was Rip Hamilton and his game-high 30 points, shooting 50 percent from the field.  Like the rest of the offense, he disappeared down the stretch.  Carlos Boozer had a double-double of 19 points and 11 rebounds, failing to grab a critical board off two missed free throws in the final seconds.  Kirk Hinrich scored 17, but his shooting woes continued at 4-of-11, the same numbers from the field for Luol Deng, who finished with 10.  Joakim Noah grabbed 10 boards despite finishing with a "6" in the scoring column.

There are a variety of reasons you could point to this collapse.  I haven't been able to actually sit down and watch a game for awhile, but I've heard that the Bulls aren't closing opponents out like they should.  That could be a season-long problem for this year's team with or without Derrick Rose.  Hopefully, I won't have to keep coming back to it. 

What I'm more puzzled about is Tom Thibodeau's stubbornness regarding his starters this early in the year.  Of that group, Hamilton played the fewest number of minutes tonight:  36.  Deng sat for all of 42 seconds.  Only Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson and Nate Robinson got off the bench.  No Belinelli, no Mohammed, not even Teague.  That falls squarely on Thibs.  I know he may not trust everybody sitting next to him at the moment, but even so, you have to get your starters out of there if the game looks out of reach.  The minutes they played tonight should be reserved for Miami in the spring, not Milwaukee in late November.  Racehorses get tired if they have to run a track longer than they're required and the same can be applied to basketball players.  If Thibodeau isn't careful, his insistence on coaching every single game like it's do-or-die is going to catch up with him.  He also needs to realize that this team isn't championship-caliber.  I dearly hope he's already well ahead of me.  Otherwise, I wonder what goes on in his mind.  The bottom line:  in wild blowouts, give others some playing time.  At the very least, do it to protect your main guys.  Do the opposite and you get what happened tonight.

The Bulls will try to put tonight's nightmare behind them on Wednesday when the Dirk-less Dallas Mavericks come to town.  It might not be easy, but something good needs to happen to get this bad taste out of their mouths.  I'll leave you with the tweet I posted that made it onto Bulls Postgame Live.  Mark Schanowski said I was about spot on.  Too bad I couldn't have written something more positive, but it was appropriate for this game I'd like to forget about, but may not for awhile.