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Were you watching the same game I was? The Bulls had a ton of unforced turnovers. Dribbling the ball off their feet. Failing to catch passes that proceeded to bounce into the hands of Pacers. The Pacers defense forced TO's, no doubt. But all series the Bulls have just been sloppy with the ball. And it's not like that's something new...it's been something that they've done before, just never for a stretch of 3 games like this. I swear, we could probably reduce or turnovers by half if we could teach our bigs to catch a pass. The Bulls only had 15 turnovers last night (.8 over their season average). 3 of those were charging fouls and another one was a 3 second violation. The Pacers had several steals that just came from stepping into the passing lanes or overplaying guys so I don't think there could have that many left that were unforced. I do remember one stretch during the game where there was some sloppy handling of the ball by the Bulls (near the end of the first beginning of the second if I remember correctly) but it didn't really lead to turnovers. It kept squirting out right back to another Bull.

Maybe they feel that the economy is coming back and that they're getting an extremely team friendly deal by avoiding that awkward contract when he's like 33 and clearly going downhill. Still, 10 years is a really long time to be paying anyone a guaranteed amount of money, especially for a small-mid market team. No they feel like inflation is on their side. For example one dollar today had buying power worth $1.30 ten years ago. That 100million dollars payed out over the next ten years and backloaded will probably only amount to 70million dollars in 2011 money when the contract is over. If inflation continues at its current rate. So what do you think of the deal now? Inflation better really be on their side but I don't see it happening. The going rate for stars like Braun is about 20 million a year right now or maybe 25 at the top end. What is it going to be in 5 years when Braun would have signed this contract? 25-30 at most? He'll be 32 years old when he starts this extension so he might not be in his prime any longer. By the end of this contract in his age 36 year he definitely won't be anywhere near his prime. He plays an easy position to play and does it poorly. This isn't a situation like Pujols where his numbers are so far in the stratosphere that they can come down and still be great either. It's a ton of risk to assume that Braun will stay healthy and productive for that long and to hope that baseball salaries continue to inflate just to save 20-45 million over the life of this deal. This seems to be more of a marketing decision than a baseball one.

the bulls have played some of their worst basketball of the seaosn in this series, and they still haven't been able to win a single game. bulls have basically given them the gift of playing terribly and they still can't beat us. scrub team. Hahahaha. Yeah they're playing terribly. All of a sudden. Just coincidence. So idiotic. indiana is great at forcing unforced turnovers. I didn't see many if any unforced turnovers last night by the Bulls (as opposed to game 2 where there were some). The Pacers are long and playing a trapping style defense. Last night was a good example of what all can happen with that defense. They gave up some open 3 pointers but they also forced turnovers. In particular, Dahntay Jones is known for being that kind of a defensive specialist and Paul George is playing incredible defense in this series. IMO, the only significant Bull who has had a terrible series is Boozer. He's taken some foolish shots and gotten into foul trouble twice because of his need to constantly throw elbows around. Other than that, Rose has been pretty good, Deng was great last night and fine in the other two games, Noah's been huge on the boards, Korver has had a great series (7-8 on 3 pointers so far in the playoffs!), Bogans had 2 terrible nights but played very well last night, Gibson and Watson have been fine for what time they've gotten on the court, and Thomas gave them some good minutes in game 1. As for who was wondering if the Bulls have led by double digits in this series, apparently they haven't. Their biggest lead has been 7 in the series.

I don't think so. The Bulls have a better bench, a better coach, and two other players in Deng and Boozer that are slightly better than Indiana's second and third scorers. Indiana is just a bad matchup for the Bulls. This is the playoffs where you rarely blow out teams unless you are the 90s Bulls. I would say it's really hard to compare benches. Indiana's is asked to do a lot more than Chicago's. Chicago has 2 of its top 3 scorers on the floor for a really large number of minutes so they really just ask their bench to fill roles around those players. Indiana is much more conservative with the minutes so their bench has to pick up a lot more of the slack. Is Chicago's more talented and given the opportunity would be better than the Pacers? I don't know.

This was the night for the Bulls to have the extreme 3 point shooting advantage that the Pacers had in game 1. Bogans going 3-3 especially hurt. And the fouls were equal but the Pacers committed more shooting fouls so the Bulls had a 9 free throw advantage.

People are going to foul Derrick Rose hard. He's so strong he'll get and 1's otherwise. And considering the Bulls seem to be on a mission to have Hansbrough's vertigo return, the Bulls haven't exactly been innocent either. The Bulls have 2-3 very physical players themselves.

Why were the Bulls guarding that last shot? At the end of the day, the Bulls have Rose and the Pacers don't. That's the only difference between the teams but it's a massive one. And at the end of these games, you have to have a player who can break down the defense like that. Rose has done it all 3 games which is why the Bulls are up 3-0. And I wouldn't worry about what this might mean for successive rounds-the Bulls can win series coming up playing just like this. I thought they played really well tonight.

Can't say I agree on the goaltend. I don't think the ball had hit the glass yet. But another replay may prove me wrong on that. As for Buckner, that's NBATV's fault. He's the Pacers announcer and is announcing primarily on the Pacers normal channel. He's not the biggest homer in the world and is willing to say when the Pacers catch a break but is definitely somewhat a homer. That's fine. Jon Miller does SF Giants games locally, and he's not a homer when he does them nationally. Quinn Buckner should be a bit more professional. He probably doesn't realize it. It's a little different in this case. Miller signs a contract to do national games and therefore has a responsibility to be objective. This is probably just an agreement for NBATV to use the local feed. It's not the announcers responsibility to change because they never agreed to broadcast to a national audience. But I can understand why you would be frustrated with his announcing! I thought the officials were slightly pro Pacers in the first half. They probably got 10 calls wrong in the second quarter alone and 5-7 of them went the Pacers way while only 3-5 went the Bulls way. They definitely are not a pro offense officiating crew though-most of the calls were favoring the defensive team.

Can't say I agree on the goaltend. I don't think the ball had hit the glass yet. But another replay may prove me wrong on that. As for Buckner, that's NBATV's fault. He's the Pacers announcer and is announcing primarily on the Pacers normal channel. He's not the biggest homer in the world and is willing to say when the Pacers catch a break but is definitely somewhat a homer.

These officials are really strange. Every time there's been a 50/50 play the call has gone the opposite way of what's normally expected. It's been pretty even but I have no idea how they're calling this game right now.

It definitely was. Big break for the Pacers on that play.

Oh god. Kill that team with fire. Glad I'm not the only one victimized by those suckers. We should form a support group. CURSE YOU JASON WILLIAMS WHY DID YOU HAVE TO MISS THAT FREE THROW!! That is sort of a blessing for Duke fans considering it could have gone down as one of the worst blown calls in NCAA history if Boozer had made that follow up shot. Duke probably goes on to win the title and that play where nobody touches Williams would have been replayed over and over again as one of the most blatant examples of Duke bias ever known. These two teams tonight have a combined 5 Duke players. That's pretty crazy.

Collison will start, but how long he can go or how effective he will be is still a huge question mark.

When he's promoted to Chicago will he bump Byrd to right or play right? That's a really hard question to answer. It depends on when/why he's promoted and where the Cubs are at that point. Jackson's probably a better defender than Byrd but the Cubs are unlikely to bump Byrd unless the Cubs are out of contention. I think where Jackson plays depends on who gets squeezed out of the 2012 plans first-Colvin or Byrd.

I bet that's only 5/6 total. 38 of 46 total. Yeah, I knew it had to be a lot more than that because the Pacers have been involved in 5 series like that since 1994. The team without homecourt advantage didn't end up winning any of the series. The Pacers did it 3 times in Eastern Conference Finals in the 90's (Knicks, Magic, Bulls). They lost all 3 series in 7 games. The year the Pacers went to the NBA Finals the Knicks did it to them in the Eastern Conference Finals before the Pacers recovered to win in 6. Miami then did it to them in 2003 and the Pacers again recovered to win in 6.

It's probably because for the first time most people are noticing the Pacers are more than just one of the worst playoff teams in NBA history. They also have a lot of young talent (their starting lineup is 28, 25, 24, 23, and 20 years old). The suddenness of that revelation is probably why they're being labeled as upstarts now even if they get swept in this series.

I'm just saying...its the easiest part of the schedule right now. Doesn't mean we're doomed or anything moving forward. If we are mediocre against the bad teams are are playing now, we'll have to play better to make the playoffs. Except the Rockies are one of the best teams in the NL and the Brewers are with us and the Reds at the top of our mediocre division. What does that have to do with playing an easy schedule so far? Yeah we played the Rockies, the Brewers are mediocre and we havent played the Reds. I would agree with you that the Cubs schedule gets a lot tougher on paper but it hasn't been that way so far. The Cubs opponents are 53-53 so far. The NL teams that the Cubs haven't played yet are 80-80. I agree with you that the Cubs will have to play better to make the playoffs. However, I'm not really worried about facing more good teams because the Cubs still rarely play anybody who's supposed to be really good this year.

Coleman would have had to pitch on short rest. The good news is that the Cubs only have to have the #5 spot come up twice more in the next 3+ weeks. Hopefully they'll have one of Wells/Cashner back by around mid-May (probably Wells).

Looks like he didn't pick up the spin there..by the time he realized it wasn't a high fastball like all the others Bell had thrown it was way too late.

Probably a few steps shy of the warning track...looked decent for an instant but wasn't that close.

Good catch by Castro. Garza has figured out how to solve his BABIP problems-if you can't lower your opponent's BABIP just strike more people out! The Padres' BABIP is .500 on the day today but they have no runs thanks to the 8 K's and 0 BB's. The strange thing for Garza is that he has never been a really high strikeout guy. If a move to the NL is helping his strikeout rate that could be a really good sign for him going forward.

None of the popular teams have many Monday night games. That's not the desirable night. I don't know if for away teams the Thanksgiving game counts for the 5 night game maximum. Otherwise it's a little surprising that Green Bay didn't get the maximum number of night games.

Compared to what? How many teams really have what's considered a good bench? Here are the NL playoff teams last year "benches" (I'm including everybody who got over 100 PA who was not listed in the starting lineup on Baseball reference since it's so hard to sort out a bench over the course of a year). The two exceptions was Andres Torres who was not listed in the starting lineup even though he had 570 PA so I substituted him for Shierholtz who only had 252 PA. I also threw out Jerry Hairston since he started so much for the Padres (and he was terrible anyway). Phillies: 363 PA .667 OPS, 197 PA .768 OPS, 176 PA .583 OPS, 147 PA .729 OPS, 138 PA .813 OPS, 136 PA .475 OPS, average age 32.67 Giants: 267 PA .707 OPS, 252 PA .676 OPS, 221 PA .644 OPS, 173 PA .712 OPS, 140 PA .696 OPS, 139 PA .692 OPS, 104 PA .537 OPS, average age 31.28 Reds: 243 PA .834 OPS, 228 PA .723 OPS, 226 PA .763 OPS, 226 PA .757 OPS, 182 PA .805 OPS, average age 29.2 Padres: 317 PA .769 OPS, 307 PA .726 OPS, 241 PA .557 OPS, 239 PA .631 OPS, 148 PA .653 OPS, 147 PA .748 OPS, 120 PA .607 OPS, 111 PA .781 OPS average age 28.75 Just for reference, here are the Cubs of last year: Cubs: 394 PA .816 OPS, 347 PA .660 OPS, 231 PA .552 OPS, 224 PA .739 OPS, 204 PA .689 OPS, 185 PA .734 OPS average age 28.17 So there's really only one good bench out of the 5. I'm not a fan of the Cubs bench from 2003-2006. But the last 5 years the Cubs have had a bench that has ranged from average to great. The standards for benches are much higher in perception than these benches actually are in reality.

Fukudome's wife is having a baby. with a Cincinatti loss and a Chicago win, Cubs can be tied for the Division lead. That would require the Cubs to win back-to-back games, which they haven't done yet this year. They're still at .500, though, which also indicates they haven't lost back-to-back much this year either. The Cubs won the first 2 games against the D'Backs-their only 2 game winning streak of the year (the two against the Brewers are their only 2 game losing streak).

News was supposed to come out sometime today for both of them, but I haven't heard anything yet. As you said, Wells played catch while Casher is just reported to be feeling much better.