bukie

Career stats for Hansbrough aren't gonna tell you much. He's basically a rookie due to his vertigo last year and had very inconsistent rotation minutes/buried on the bench until JOB got fired. His midrange jumper since he started playing under Vogel has easily been his most improved attribute, and made him basically the most viable pick n roll threat to pair with Collison. When his jumper gets going he's a damn good player and Boozer can only watch hopelessly as Hansbrough utterly devours his life soul. I initially posted career numbers, but changed it to his numbers for the year. Hansbrough doesn't hit 70% of his long jumpers in an open gym, so I don't expect the rate to continue. 43% of long jumpers is average to above average for an NBA player. The Bulls defense is designed around locking down the paint, playing off to allow long 2's, and limiting 3's. The Pacers hit some open 3's in the first half, but Granger was hitting some silly shots in the 3rd, and Hansbrough was hitting shots at a clip he couldn't maintain in an empty gym. I doubt Indiana will have that type of offensive performance from long range again this series. What's with referencing an open gym not once but twice. That's just weird and no one said he would maintain a 70% shooting percentage. It's very simple, he's improved his midrange jumper dramatically in the latter half of this season and its not a miracle he hit 7 of them in 1 game, especially considering he has Boozer the disappearing act defending him. I'm saying that even if Boozer plays off him all the time, it's still more challenging than hitting them in an empty gym, and he's not hitting 70% of his shots there, so I'm not expecting it to continue. The Bulls defensive strategy was apparently to make the Pacers beat them with long-range shots, and the Pacers hit 60% of them. I don't think that should make the Bulls change their defensive strategy, because that's unsustainable.

On average, NBA teams historically make about 75% of their free throws. That is a 15-foot shot from straight on, no contesting, and every player in the league shoots and practices them constantly. The best shooters in the NBA make 3's at about a 60% clip in the 3-point shootout (that's just the average make % of the winners, it's much lower if you average all contestants). Again, that's unguarded, spot up shots from the 5 highest percentage spots behind the line, and only counting the best shooter in the NBA each year. The average NBA player does not make 70%+ of their 15-23 foot shots in an open gym. Tyler Hansbrough is an above-average jump-shooter, and he hit 43% of his long twos this year, making under 2 per game. He is not going to continue to hit 7+ long range shots a game, even if Boozer is playing off to prevent him from getting actual high percentage shots.

Also, not that Rose should make a habit of shooting 9 3's in a game he absolutely dominates from the paint, but when the Bulls are pulling down half the offensive rebounding opportunities, a missed 3's almost as good as a lob pass.

HoopData shows it better than I can...Bulls lock down paint, Pacers (Hansbrough in particular) light it up from long range: http://hoopdata.com/blogengine/post/2011/04/16/Bulls-Heat-Survive-Early-Scares.aspx

Career stats for Hansbrough aren't gonna tell you much. He's basically a rookie due to his vertigo last year and had very inconsistent rotation minutes/buried on the bench until JOB got fired. His midrange jumper since he started playing under Vogel has easily been his most improved attribute, and made him basically the most viable pick n roll threat to pair with Collison. When his jumper gets going he's a damn good player and Boozer can only watch hopelessly as Hansbrough utterly devours his life soul. I initially posted career numbers, but changed it to his numbers for the year. Hansbrough doesn't hit 70% of his long jumpers in an open gym, so I don't expect the rate to continue. 43% of long jumpers is average to above average for an NBA player. The Bulls defense is designed around locking down the paint, playing off to allow long 2's, and limiting 3's. The Pacers hit some open 3's in the first half, but Granger was hitting some silly shots in the 3rd, and Hansbrough was hitting shots at a clip he couldn't maintain in an empty gym. I doubt Indiana will have that type of offensive performance from long range again this series.

In game 1, Tyler Hansbrough was 7-10 outside 15 feet. For his career, Tyler Hansbrough is a 43% shooter from outside 15 feet, and makes an average of under 2 per game.

The Bulls so far have the second most efficient offense of any playoff team, with a 122.6 offensive rating (New Orleans finished with a 122.7 offensive rating). We'll just not mention the defense for now.

I watched the game twice, and here's what I noticed, at face value*: 1st half: Open shots galore, terrible Bulls defense. Rose was bad at preventing Collison drives, second level of D not rotating fast enough. 3rd quarter: Much better Bulls defense, Granger and company hitting some silly shots to maintain the margin. 4th quarter: Indy still hitting silly shots until the last 3 minutes, where the Bulls didn't allow a single uncontested shot. *Boozer, however, failed to play D the whole game.

Ok, who had the Hawks and Hornets as the biggest blowout victors for the opening games?

I feel a lot better about the Bulls struggling after seeing the Heat, Spurs and Lakers all struggle too. You forgot the Magic as well. I'm sure the Celtics are salivating at the opportunity to out-struggle everyone else. On the contrary, I have a feeling the Knicks are about to find out how non-contending they really are this week.

Also, Vogel picked up his first tech of the year today. This was Deng's second tech of the year, the first also being against the Pacers.

Crazy stat of the game: The Bulls had 21 offensive rebounds, for a 50% OReb percentage.

Apparently Miami also forgot about the early start time today.

The Pacers were hitting some really silly shots in the second half, but Boozer was awful for much of the game.

Somehow the Pacers didn't score 100. That's amazing.

Considering the Bulls have played almost no defense and only trail by four, it's pretty encouraging.

Here's a video of the debacle:

Same here. What made Luol step of his game? Thibs? He wasn't as good this year as he was last year. He is now more of a 4th option than a second option. He was actually a more effective shooter due to the increase in 3-point shots as opposed to long 2's. His rebounding suffered a bit this year individually, but so did Rose and Noah's. Assists down too, but again the Bulls have used him more as a spot-up shooting option this year instead of an offensive creator (which is a good thing).

Mets came up one run short of sending game 1 to extras, falling 6-5 after scoring 1 in the 8th and 2 in the 9th.

It doesn't matter how they strike you. It matters how they strike the Bulls, and whether they think it's a motivational tool. If the Bulls need a motivational tool to win the series, I'd be seriously concerned about them going forward. If this series goes beyond 4, somebody got badly injured, or the Bulls lost focus defensively.

Do you actually think Dallas could beat LA, let alone in 6 games? Err, since when is 6 games too few? If Dallas is going to beat LA, they're doing it game 6 at home, not game 7 in LA. And yes, the way LA has played the past 3 weeks, Dallas can certainly beat LA.

Looks like that DeJuan Blair guy turned out to be a pretty good rebounder and an efficient low-post finisher.

I meant Saturday, but...yeah.

Who is starting tomorrow, Dempster or Coleman?

Bulls-Pacers series preview by The Basketball Jones: http://blogs.thescore.com/tbj/2011/04/14/tbj-playoff-preview-bulls-vs-pacers/