In lieu of an unlikely fifth Defensive Player of the Year award, Ben Wallace will have to settle for some NBA history.
With his next steal, Wallace will become the fifth player in NBA history to have 100 blocks and 100 steals in seven straight seasons. Wallace will join Hakeem Olajuwon, who did it 12 times, and Julius Erving, David Robinson and Sam Lacey, who did it seven each.
“I can live with that company,” Wallace said.
Wallace quietly has crept to ninth in the league with 2.14 blocks per game and 13th in steals at 1.52. Wallace leads all centers in steals.
“I just try to keep it steady,” Wallace said.
Broken record
Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy sounded like Bulls general manager John Paxson and Grizzlies center Pau Gasol when asked about the Bulls’ prospects in the playoffs.
“They have all the pieces,” Dunleavy said. “Defensively, they’re terrific. They play hard. Probably the one thing they’re missing is a low-post scorer to help on the nights when their perimeter guys aren’t making shots. Not that they couldn’t win a championship the way they are. But you probably have to get on a pretty good roll.”
It’s revisionist history to say just add Elton Brand, and all would be right. Especially because who knows what personnel moves the Bulls would have made if they had kept Brand?
But Dunleavy played along anyway.
“If they had Elton, they’d be a favorite as a contender,” Dunleavy said.
Play it again
While saying he understood the time constraints, Dunleavy added he wouldn’t mind seeing the power of instant replay expanded beyond buzzer-beating shots to include things such as fouls and judgments on borderline three-point shots in the final minute.
Bulls coach Scott Skiles, while saying he respected the other view, said he isn’t a big fan of instant replay in general. And that anything that lengthens the game isn’t ideal.
“There are other ways to speed up the game,” Skiles said. “One is to have a penalty [foul-shot situation] be one-and-one like in college because guys don’t shoot free throws. However, that will affect scoring. So [the league office] won’t do that.”
This is coming from a career 88.9 percent free-throw shooter–but the coach of a team that shoots a pedestrian 73.1 percent.
Layups
Tyrus Thomas drew three fouls in six first-half minutes. . . . Skiles played Thabo Sefolosha ahead of Chris Duhon in the first-half rotation. In a departure, Duhon didn’t enter until 3 minutes 43 seconds remained in the first half. Duhon returned to his normal spot in the rotation in the second half after Sefolosha committed two turnovers and missed a layup.
