In the middle of the fourth quarter during the Bulls game against the Dallas Mavericks yesterday, Derrick Rose clapped for the ball and Ben Gordon went ahead not passing to Rose and instead driving the ball in.

The message boarders went on to blow this into a controversy up as evidence of Gordon’s selfishness this season. They have fabricated stories about Del Negro calling a play which Rose called out that Gordon ignored. Stories have also been fabricated about Del Negro nodding agreeingly with Rose that Gordon did something wrong. This misunderstanding of the situation was likely caused by Neil Funk’s and Stacey King’s announcing during this time, where they blasted Gordon for not passing the ball to Rose.

A simple look back at the game on League Pass Broadband tells a significantly different story. Here is what actually happened.

Ben Gordon misses a shot and Tyrus Thomas grabs the rebound. Thomas passes it to Andres Nocioni at the top of the key who gives it to Gordon who resets the Bulls offense. Luol Deng raises up his right hand and calls out a play. Tyrus Thomas runs up to set a screen, but tries to set the screen on the wrong side of Gordon. At this point, Rose starts clapping for the ball on the right wing. Rose is the only player on the right side of the court for the Bulls. Thomas resets to the top of the key, and the Bulls go ahead with the play that Deng had called out. Thomas sets the screen on the correct side this time, and Gordon drives in off the screen. In this play, Dirk was guarding Nocioni downlow. Nocioni cuts to Rose’s side of the floor to try to pull Dirk away, giving Gordon an open look at the basket. Dirk recognizes that Gordon is driving and blocks off the basket, at which point Gordon passes it to Deng, who misses a close shot.

After the Mavericks score, the Bulls bring the ball down the court and call a timeout. Rose goes over to talk to Gordon and points at a spot on the floor, showing Gordon something. The spot that Rose pointed to at on the floor was on the side that Gordon was on. Then the camera cuts away. When the camera cuts back on to Rose, it shows Rose complaining to the coaching staff. Del Negro, Bernie Bickerstaff, and Del Harris give Rose a blank stare, probably realizing that it is just an NBA player having an ego trip moment and Rose walks away.

It seems that Rose was demanding the ball separate from a call from the coaching staff, just wanting to try to make the play himself. It appears that if anyone was being selfish in this moment, that it was Derrick Rose as Gordon was only going along with the play that the rest of the team was running. It would be pretty hard to believe that the entire team was trying to ignore a call from the coaching staff. In this instance, it appears that Rose wanted to go rogue like Sarah Palin and Gordon stayed on course running the Bulls’ play, called out by Deng.

Similar Posts:

• Chicago Bulls vs. Dallas Mavericks
• Dallas Mavericks 115 vs. Chicago Bulls 114 in OT
• Houston Rockets 107 vs. Chicago Bulls 100
• Chicago Bulls 107 vs. Detroit Pistons 102
• Nocioni Wins Bronze, but Is He Golden For the Bulls?

Tags: Andres Nocioni, Ben Gordon, Bernie Bickerstaff, Chicago Bulls, Clapping, controversey, Dallas Mavericks, Del Harris, Derrick Rose, Dirk Nowitzki, Luol Deng, Stacey King, Tyrus Thomas, Vinny Del Negro

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.