Sometimes you wake up and just want to dump all over someone, and today it’s the Bulls.
Let’s review the Tuesday night experienced by the mentally and physically soft Bulls:
They weren’t ready to start their game in Memphis.
They weren’t ready to start the second quarter, in case anyone missed the opening period.
They weren’t ready to play the third quarter after a halftime adjustment that must’ve focused on postgame BBQ places.
And they had no idea how to pull out a win in the fourth quarter of a game they desperately needed.
It’s insulting that the players could come out lacking urgency and intensity in the last week of the regular season when the Bulls are two games out of a playoff spot.
It’s insulting that the players have come out like that many times this season.
To think, this was a Grizzlies team that was beaten up worse than the Bulls, had lost six in a row and looked every bit of it with some horrible shooting to start the game.
The Grizzlies looked like one of the few Western Conference teams the Bulls could finish ahead of.
But no. The Bulls’ big money players came up small in a big game.
The Bulls backcourt, the most expensive in the league, the one with contracts worth nearly $200 million, combined for 17 points. Thanks for playing our game.
Derrick Rose missed 10 of 15 shots. Jimmy Butler had five points, none until less than five minutes remained. Butler and Rose were so bad they looked like the Gar Forman and Fred Hoiberg of backcourts.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that Rose and Butler have no idea how to dominate together the way their salaries tell you they should. The Tribune’s K.C. Johnson wrote about it here.
What’s more, Rose and Butler don’t appear to have much interest in resolving that issue, and now we have another performance that will argue that one of them has to be traded this summer. Or both.
Look, there’s nothing to recommend retaining any part of the stench that is this roster and the way it performs under the substitute teacher in charge of the class for now.
In one sequence in which the Bulls were faking an attempt to come back, the Grizzlies took one of their typically awful shots, and Rose promptly threw the ball the length of the court out of bounds, one of Ros’e team-leading five turnovers. Bad and stupid is no way to make the playoffs.
The Tribune’s Chris Kuc tweeted that Rose’s postgame comments included “my job is just to come in and not (mess) up the game.”
Oops, babe.
The Bulls turned over the ball 20 times and were outscored 44-30 in the paint. Put a body on someone, OK? Or go hard in the lane yourself.
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Instead, Pau Gasol has become First Team All-Throw-Your-Hands-Up-When-Turning-Over-The Ball-In-The-Paint.
What makes Tuesday night’s performance especially aggravating is that the ninth-place Bulls turned in that kind of game as the eighth-place Pistons were getting crushed by the Heat. But the Bulls couldn’t pick up any ground.
Then again, it’s hard to pick up ground when you check your pride at the locker room door.
For those of your scoring at home in the last 12 months or so, Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has issued statements railing against a beat writer covering the team and firing on a fired Bulls head coach.
Can the Chairman issue a statement on something as important as players who don’t seem to care every game?
How about a statement on management wonks who declared this a championship-contending roster?
Or how about a $25 million coach who’s inept compared to the last guy who got the Chairman’s written statement treatment?
I’ll hang up and listen for more of this franchise’s comedy stylings.
