i think by pax drafting TT and thabo the bulls not only got more athletic....... but better defensively.. (should be at least)

Thabo can give Hinrich and BennyG a breather from guarding the SGs.. In a comparison.. I heard thabo was like Doug Christie...

And we all know what TT can do on Defense... the guy can jump... and has the abilty to have an impact on the game... energy u can say... the guy can jump way up there... almost touch the rim with his head and think when he holds his hands up in the air... thats what u call a a freaky athlete. A guy with springs on his legs.

I keep hearing people talk about offense.. and not enough about defense... i hear people say we need a taller C and blah blah... who can post...

maybe if we played better defense we would have won more ball games... what do u guys think?

Did anyone notice that the bulls avr 97.8 points per game... I dont know about u guys.. but if u ask me.. thats plenty a night.... thats almost 98 points....

but heres the catch.. they allowed almost the same as they scored... 97.2 points... thats too much...

In my opinion.. if we can play better defense and only allow 92-93 points... that would help out a lot... yes we should worry about about offense... but lets focus on D too plz... our offense will only get better with more experience in the same system.. better chemistry.... Luol Deng getting stronger... getting less afraid to atack the basket and go to the line... Ben Gordon attacking the basket more... etc...

I think this bulls team can be dangerous if we get another intimadator guarding the basket.. (Ben Wallace) our Defense would improve a lot..

Defense and rebounds is a key to winning... Lets play some D and get out of the first round shall we?

go bulls

TT can get up there.. check this out fellas

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ldgQbvC_tfg&mod...=Tyrus%20Thomas

A lot of players can get their elboys at rim level. How high he can jump has nothing to do with how well he is going to handle guys taller and much heavier than him.

The Bulls did pick up a ton of athletes, and if the NBA is consistant about keeping the game more wide open and not the nuetral zone trap game it has been for the past 15-20 years, then the Bulls could be onto something. They definately got much better on the defensive end, it remains up to free agency to see if the Bulls have improved on the scoring end of things.

Good post I agree, adding Ben Wallace would be HUGE.

oh i know...

but ill tell u what though.. the guy has great timing to get blocks.. and knows how to get blocks from weak side help... u cant coach that..

We got some depht for the future..

-the game is changing with quicker smaller PFs that can spread the floor..
-when picking TT and Thabo i look at us being sorta like teh mavs... very deep...
-this also gives us more competiveness at practice...

heck imagine this scenerio:

After a long hard practice Luol Deng gets ready to go home and rest... as he leaves to open the door.. he sees Tyrus grabbing a basket ball and working on his shot... what does luol deng think?? "Heck i better go practice too.. or else this guy is going to take my job pretty soon"

-i know tyrus will be practicing hard to get some playing time... thats the kind of guy he is...

I like how pax surrounded the team with Gym rats..

you see these guys will push each other to their limits to get their full potential quicker.. which is good...


And one more quick thing... T2, Noc, And the Chandalier on the court on the same time.... thats what u call fire and toughness right there... very important in the playoffs

They already have had the best FG% defense for the last two years. That's pretty hard to improve on. We'd have to create more turnovers to get much better, and the new guys don't help with that much, especially since they probably won't get that much playing time early.

However, under 98 a game is pretty low for a team that's supposed to do something of note. They don't have a go to scorer, which is something that they need to go deep into the playoffs. They also have a low FG percentage, which is a symptom of not having post scoring. Getting another scoring threat like Aldridge would have at least helped.

I'm wondering which position Tyrus Thomas is going to be able to play lockdown defense on...

And why do we need defense? IIRC we led the league in defense last year.

we were near the bottom in steals and blocked shots.

Well we were first in the league in OPP FG% which I would consider the most important defensive stat.

Bingo.

One thing we got with our picks that we didn't need was defense. We already led the league in defensive FG% the last two years. We needed someone who could open up Ben and Kirk. Thomas doesn't do that. Sorry, Pax failed his first draft.

exactly.

Boy, people are just never happy.

Actually Pax could have made me happy very very easily last night.

You didn't want Tyrus Thomas, apparently?

oh no, willie was BIG on tyrus...

/shoulda kept aldridge

Some people wanted Aldridge and some wanted Thomas. So this will be interesting.

-Yeah the best FG% but we still have a lot to improve on. What would you rather have on ur team... Allow 97 points a game, or under 90?

-Theres still A LOT of problems in our defense. It can be greatly improved... I dont see how "thats pretty hard to imporve on"....
-We badly needed a taller defensive guard, and we got one. We needed another intimidator in the paint, and we got one (although he might not be one right now, he probably will turn out to be one).
-A big problem we had this year was that once Chandler was at the bench... The Bulls lost their "intimidator" at the paint.. That meant that teams saw no one that can block shots,so many players just took it hard to the rim. They saw little Allen, sweets, and Songo.... And that is a huge reason why we fouled soo much, and many teams got lots of "free points" because of that.
-Quick example...If we had a guy like Ben Wallace, he would be an intimidator out there. And teams would think twice before driving to the paint. That means more outside shots...


WHarris1, and Goldmember... I disagree with you guys that "Well we were first in the league in OPP FG% which I would consider the most important defensive stat."

-Allowing points is probably the most important stat.... A team can hold down a team to under 40% in a game and still lose because of allowing many points at the free throw line, or making too many turnovers... All i gotta say is that a team has a better chance of winning games if they allow under 90 points a game. Compared to being first in the league in OPP FG%... after all, the Bulls were first this year in that department, yet were a .500 team....

That a horrible argument. Why give up 97 points a game when we could give up 60 points a game. Let's trade Deng for Bruce Bowen!

Probably with points allowed is that rebounds hugely effect that, as do offensive turnovers...neither of which tell you about your teams defense. If you truly want to measure a teams ability to defend, and only defend then FG% is the way to go.

Points allowed can easily be affected by your own offensive efficiency (turnovers, fast break opportunities allowed), your rebounding, and how well you create turnovers. Those are areas that we've struggled in at times, and the guys we got don't help us that much (Thomas will help rebounding, but not significantly early). We're not going to get much more efficient in our defense considering how well we already force bad shots. The pace you play at can also affect things. San Antonio and Detroit often grind things to a halt, so they keep the opponents scoring down, but also limit there's. I don't see us consistently winning games 84-78, and you simply aren't going to drop your points allowed by 7 points any other way.

Our offense on the other hand has a lot of room to grow. We can use some improvements in field goal percentage and earning free throws. It'd be a lot easier to improve our scoring from under 98 to around 100 than it would be to do the same thing on the defensive end.

Allowing 97 points is a good defensive team?



I still say we can improve alot.

ha ha.. i hope u guys know im kidding.. he he.. but im not joking around with how we can still improve our defense.

Very good point... But still, IMO, we allowed wayyy too many free throws compared to other elite defensive teams... And the Bulls werent horrible at giving up turnovers, and offensive rebounds... Yes they could improve, but they werent that bad...

Very good points Zoom... But i still think that the Bulls could get to another level defensively... Having more Athletic players will help us our tremendously. And drafting a tall guard will help us out alot at times. And i still think that having another good shot blocker could help us out a lot too. Overall, i just think there are many things that the Bulls can improve on defensively, and they got a few things from this draft that will help us out a little bit more this year, and a lot more in the years to come as our Rookies grow.

- I say the Bulls are just lucky they have a GREAT defensive coach in Scott Skiles... Who woulda thought that the Bulls would be this good defensively this year.... I mean, look at our Roster. Luke and Chandler (who both bearely played, or couldnt stay on the court that long) are our only guys that are over 6'10. And our backcourt players mostly all have Point guard bodies... Scott did a tremendous job coaching this year... Now just think how good the Bulls could be w/ having more athletic players?... ( im talking about rotating quicker, being able to guard multiple positions if somehow a player switches up their man, causing more turnovers by stealing, and blocking some shots.... Most of that does involve being pretty athletic)I think this should help out a lot... Maybe not too much this year, but later on, YES.

One thing is for sure, we need a lot more taller players right now, and some bulk... This should help us out in a lot of ways as well.

This season needs to start now.

U know what guys.. Im starting to be a TT fan and im starting to like him now... who knows.. maybe because everyone seems to hate him he he