Toronto Raptors 114 at Chicago Bulls 94
January 24th, 2009 by Andrew WamboldtThe Chicago Bulls fell to the Toronto Raptors 114 to 94, dropping their fourth straight game.
With 3:33 left in the fourth and the Bulls down by 8, Vinny Del Negro decided to sub out Ben Gordon. From there on, the Bulls only scored 2 more points, letting Toronto run up the deficit to 20 points.
How many completely idiotic coaching decisions does Del Negro get before he gets canned? It is usually never a good idea to take Gordon out of the game in the fourth quarter. He has a history of being a great fourth quarter player. But to compound on that, Gordon was having a good fourth quarter, scoring 9 points while missing only 1 shot. Anyone who knows anything about any sport in general knows that you should continue riding the hot player when the game is on the line.
On the whole, Ben Gordon just had a decent night. Gordon scored 19 points on 5-14 shooting, but was 8-9 from the free throw line. Gordon also had 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Gordon was doing all the right things tonight. He was attacking the basket hard, and was starting to put together a nice game through his great fourth quarter play. It is hard to see what Vinny was thinking when he benched Gordon. Maybe he thinks he can save his job by keeping Gordon’s season averages down and saving the organization a little money. News flash for Vinny, Jim Boylan already tried that one, and he got fired.
Derrick Rose had a very poor outing, scoring 12 points on 5-12 shooting, grabbing 3 rebounds, dishing 4 assists, and getting 4 turnovers. This is another reason why Del Negro has got to go, Rose has developed into a really bad player under Del Negro. Derrick Rose does not contribute to winning basketball at this point in his career, and for that reason alone, Del Negro should be fired.
Kirk Hinrich had another nice game off the bench. Hinrich had 17 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds. He is really thriving offensively in the sixth man role. Hinrich’s defense hasn’t been that good the past few games, but the team as a whole has bad defensively, so it’s hard to knock Hinrich when it might just be the defensive schemes.
Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas were terrible for the most part. Their defense was just bad. Thomas though, had a really nice dunk over Jermaine O’neal. Aaron Gray was the Bulls best big off the bench, scoring 7 points and grabbing 7 rebounds.
Luol Deng was good, scoring 14 points on 4-8 shooting. Andres Nocioni had 15 points off the bench.
Jose Calderon really killed the Bulls. He had a very efficient 23 points, shooting the ball 9-10 from the field, while dishing for 10 assists. The Raptors looked like a much better team with him out there directing the office then they did a little over a week ago with Solomon Jones running the point.
The Raptors front court really killed the Bulls. Andrea Bargnani had 22 points and Chris Bosh had 17 points.
Joey Graham scored 16 points in the game.
The Bulls were rather careless with the ball, turning the ball over 23 times.
It is getting really hard to write game recaps, because the Bulls are so awful. This is not an indictment of the players though, it is an indictment of the coaching staff. The team simply is playing pickup ball. There is no noticeable offensive or defensive systems. The talent on the team is fine, there is just not a good offensive or defensive system in place for the players to excel in. The Bulls need to fire Vinny Del Negro and get a veteran coach who knows what he’s doing.
The Bulls are a horrible team, and a lot of it has to do with the horrible coaching. It is time for Reinsdorf to improve the product he’s putting on the court, or else the fans may begin to leave.
With this loss, the Bulls fall to 18-26 on the season.
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Tags: Aaron Gray, Andrea Bargnani, Andres Nocioni, Ben Gordon, benching, Chicago Bulls, Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Jermaine O'neal, Joakim Noah, Joey Graham, Jose Calderon, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Toronto Raptors, Tyrus Thomas, Vinny Del Negro
January 24th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Did you actually allow the words “Derrick Rose” and “bad player” escape your keyboard?
January 24th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Its infuriating that Reinsdorf and Paxson would entrust a man with absolutely no coaching experience with the development of a future HOF point guard. I dont care if you channel the spirit of Red Auerbach to sit on the bench with him
January 25th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Derrick Rose is producing like a bad player on the basketball court, but clearly has the talent of a great player.
Vinny’s coaching has been a joke. Derrick Rose has regressed under him, while he has caused some chemistry issues with the return of Kirk Hinrich, by benching Ben Gordon in the fourth. (And Kirk has shown no reason why he should be in over Gordon in the clutch. Gordon has a history of being big in the fourth, Hinrich does not, and Hinrich is not bringing much of anything in the fourth this year either).
I hope Del Negro is gone soon. Going on a big losing streak might be enough to do that. At the very least, hopefully he is fired the moment our season ends, like Boylan last year.
It’s hard to blame Paxson for this mess. Resindorf scared away the coach he picked, D’Antoni, who has a New York team that is far inferior in talent doing better than us. Scary to think what we could do with D’Antoni given Rose’s and Gordon’s offensive talent.
Hopefully Reinsdorf has learned his lesson of hiring a cheap, inexperienced coach. Hopefully Reinsdorf will actually pay for a coach after the disaster of Jim Boylan, and the even bigger disaster of Vinny Del Negro (who actually has a worse win percentage than Jim Boylan, despite having Derrick Rose!).
Avery Johnson and Jeff Van Gundy are the two obvious coaches. We are a big market, and we deserve a big name coach like those two. The Knicks had Larry Brown (didn’t work out, but still were willing to spend) and now Mike D’Antoni. Lakers have Phil Jackson. We’ve hired inexperienced coaches since Jackson left in Floyd, Cartwright, Boylan, and Del Negro. None of them have worked out. Bill Cartwright is the only one who showed any positive things, as Tyson Chandler looked real good under him, as did Nenad Krstic. The one coach with experience took us to the playoffs 3 out of 4 opportunities. (Not counting the last year, since he didn’t get to finish the season, and it’s quite possible we could have made the playoffs with him, we only missed out by 4 games).
So hopefully we get an experienced head coach. I think Avery johnson is just in waiting, ready to leap on the Bulls job. He tried to get it last year, but we didn’t really make much of a strong offer at him. This summer (or hopefully before), we show a lot of interest in him. He would be a hell of a hire. He’s from the Popovich line of coaching, but has also gotten to see some of the offensive things that Don Nelson did. He had Dallas as the best offensive team in 05-06, and 2nd in 06-07. They were also a respectable defensive team. Hopefully we give him a chance, since I don’t think Van Gundy is going to leave his ESPN gig.