Just a two game schedule tonight - that’s the kind of thing that helps me go to sleep early…
Chicago Bulls 92, San Antonio Spurs 85 in Chicago - How do you beat a veteran team that reloaded for one more title run before their Hall of Fame power forward/center gets severely deep into his twilight (no vampires) years?
Be. Freaking. Athletic.
The Chicago Bulls decided to forget about the X’s and O’s of basketball and trying to match up a certain way here and a particular way there and just go out and play. They ran the floor, attacked the glass, and hustled in a way older players simply can’t. Normally in a matchup between these two teams, you’d expect Derrick Rose to have to dominate Tony Parker and hope that Ben Gordon somebody steps up to be a tough second scorer. However, the Bulls made it a complete team commitment to outplaying a team that was much more experienced and a lot more talented than the squad they were putting on the floor.
The obvious biggest difference between the two performances was the offensive rebounding. The Bulls won the rebounding battle (52-44) thanks to 15 offensive rebounds. The Bulls ended up scoring on 11 of their 15 offensive rebounds and shot free throws on another one of them (but Noah missed them both). Those 22 second chance points (most of them in the first half) kept the Bulls well in this game before their third quarter surge.
The Spurs relied way too heavily on Tim Duncan – not that he didn’t deliver. Duncan was masterful working against a quick, agile frontcourt that gave him a lot of different looks. He scored inside, off of quick feeds inside and with jump shots. He was mechanical and by the book, like the assassin in Behind Enemy Lines. But the rest of his teammates sold him out. Tony Parker was completely bottled up by the duo of Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich. Antonio McDyess didn’t make a single shot against the much more athletic Bulls big men. And Manu Ginobili was swarmed whenever he tried to bring the ball into the paint to create scoring opportunities.
For the Spurs, it was a simple one-man show with a bunch of other guys overmatched by younger legs. But for the Bulls, it was a total team performance. Six Bulls scored in double figures with a seventh (Brad Miller) getting nine points. The Bulls avoided getting burned by John Salmons’ poor performance with the offensive rebounding. Luol Deng rose from the dead and scored a team-high 17 points on 8/13 shooting. The team defense took care of business in the second half by holding the Spurs to 35% shooting from the field and just 2/11 from three.
Finally, the two biggest individual reasons for the Bulls win were Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas. They were active and tenacious. They seemed to appear everywhere like Nightcrawler. It was the type of performance that if given every night, would make the Bulls a defensive nightmare for other teams.
Denver Nuggets 97, Portland Trailblazers 94 in Portland - This is the world of the slimmed down Carmelo Anthony.
It’s his world – for safekeeping. He chooses to do with it what he wants. He takes what he wants and discards the scraps for commoners that have no comprehension of his power. How could we ever comprehend his power? We are not gods. We are just the audience, begging for more.
Carmelo Anthony put his name in the “These Are The Guys We’re Discussing For MVP All Season” hat and he’d like you to know he plans on having it pulled when the hardware is given out. He had 41 poins on 21 shots and had a True Shooting Percentage of 69.8. 69.8!!! That's just dumb.
Melo went NOVA against the Portland Trailblazers in Portland and as Jared Wade from BTPH mentioned, “And in less that 24 hours, Denver makes everyone who took Portland or Utah to win the Northwest say "Oh...right...yeah, I'm dumb." The Nuggets are scrappy. They’re tough. They’re physical. They have attitude. They’re basically 12 Gangsta Bitch Barbies and I mean that in the most appreciative way possible.
For the second straight game, Brandon Roy struggled with his shot. He only made six of his 16 attempts from the floor but made up for it by getting to the free throw line 18 times and making 16 of them. And that’s kind of where this game lived and died, isn’t it? At the free throw line? Roy shot 18 of them. Carmelo shot 19 freebies. Chauncey Billups was there 12 times. Hell, even Rudy Fernandez went to the free throw line eight times and he didn’t even get to the charity stripe two times per game last season.
And of course, there was Greg Oden. Greg had a chance to prove all of the doubters wrong, at least for one night. On an inexplicable play in which Brandon Roy jumped without thinking and threw an entry pass into Oden in the middle of the lane, Greg was smartly fouled (whether intentional for not) by Kenyon Martin. Oden stepped up to the line and clanked the first one. The second attempt was even worse. Nuggets ball. Free throws. Brandon Roy heave misses by a couple of feet. Ball game.
So where does the onus of this game rest? Is it on Greg Oden for missing the free throws? Is it on Brandon Roy for jump passing when you’re never supposed to jump pass? Is it on LaMarcus Aldridge who grabbed seven rebounds in 40 minutes of action to go with his nine points on 4/15 shooting? Do you blame the Blazers home loss on Carmelo Anthony going completely nuts? The answer to all of these questions is yes.
One final thing about Carmelo before I end this – he has the entire repertoire. He has every shot you could ever want. You know how people talk about Kevin Durant being the complete offensive package? Carmelo has that with a little bit of extra on top. He has the step back, the turn around, the quick jump shot when someone is draped all over him. He can drive it and either dunk on you or absorb the contact and finish the three-point play. He has it all. And he’s going to have it all season long.
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