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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.

That's what Vogel is theorizing in the Indystar article today:

The Pacers bench is so awful. Would any of them even lay claim to the Rasual Butler never play roster spot? The interesting thing is that the Pacers bench was considered the greatest strength of their team. In fact a common theme of the season was that the starters would get down early and the bench would come in and pick them up. But the Pacers big men who were pretty good during the season are getting absolutely destroyed in this series. As for the turnovers, I thought the Pacers were everywhere in the first half stepping in the passing lanes and forcing turnovers. The Bulls started having some worse looking turnovers in the second half.

I would probably say Rick Wilkins. The pickings are definitely slim though. The good news is that drought is pretty close to officially over. They now have 2 position player possible All-Stars, 2 more position player role players/possible starters on the team with 1-3 more close to joining them. That's a pretty solid core starting to develop.

If you count the Ford halfcourt three there were three of them. The two from A.J. Price I almost expected to go in. He thrives on hitting those type of shots. Too bad he can't make enough of the open ones.

Nobody got hurt, so no. tsk tsk, no regard for your opponent's health Is Collison seriously hurt? They let TJ Ford on the floor which has to say something. I think Collison will come back but I can't imagine he'll be at the same effectiveness level.

Yeah, the rebounding is the difference in this series. In the season series the Bulls out rebounded the Pacers by 7 3 different times and the Pacers out rebounded the Bulls by 1 in the other game. Looking at the season statistics, a 5-10 rebound advantage by the Bulls should be expected. Instead it's been advantages of 15 and 24 which is just killer. I don't think this says much about the Bulls going forward though. Lots of 1-8 matchups end up with close games. The Pacers have done it to 1 seeds 3 times in 10 years now. Both of the previous teams escaped the Pacers and went on to reach the NBA Finals. Getting the wins without having too deep in the series and moving on is what counts.

I'm not a fan of Indiana calling a timeout there. It probably won't end up mattering though.

This is where Indiana really struggles. I'd be surprised if they can really take this down to the last 30 seconds-minute.

Hans was out for about 3 minutes of game time after that, at the same time that they were playing backups at most other positions and it's halftime in game 2. (yes, I know you're trolling) About 7-8 minutes of game time actually (he was hurt in the 3rd quarter and didn't return until about 5 and a half minutes left) but most of that time was going to be played by the bench anyway. I doubt it ended up making a big impact on the result of that game.

If Collison is hurt for long we might see TJ Ford who has gone from starter to not playing at all back to starter more times in his Pacers career than anybody I've ever seen. He was the 4th string point guard and basically told to go home because he wasn't going to play the rest of the season after failing to be traded and then not accepting a buyout. But then Lance Stephenson got demoted for breaking a team rule which brought Ford up to 3rd point guard. His presence in this series would be incredibly random.

Yeah, Pacers fans are pretty excited about him. He doesn't turn 21 until next week. He's still got a lot to learn though. This is more of the type of game that I expected from these two teams than game 1 was (although the Pacers leading is a little bit of a surprise).

That's one of the concepts I hate in the NBA. On that Boozer shot, the ref waited until the 5 foot jumper fell off the rim before calling the foul on Hibbert. By the time the whistle actually blew they weren't even standing next to each other! If that shot had gone in Hibbert wouldn't have been called for a foul.

I agree with both of those actually. George is the best option to potentially guard Rose (which is why I thought he would be labeled as an x factor in that playoff preview). They should force Hansbrough to drive because he isn't quite as effective doing that. The only reason Chicago might not want to do that is because they would be worried that the best way to lose is to get their bigs into foul trouble and so it might be worth it to keep Hansbrough who is adept at finding contact and drawing fouls away from the paint area. There's no reason to take many risks when you're the favorite and know that as long as you can keep your talent on the floor you have a great chance to win.

I don't see the problem unlike last year...yet. Soto hasn't started hitting yet while most of the lineup has. The only hitter he should almost certainly be hitting in front of is Byrd (who is both cold and not as good of a hitter) but everyone else is either hot (Barney, Soriano) or could easily be as good of a hitter as Soto (Pena).

I laughed because I knew exactly what you were talking about so when I opened it all I had to do was see where he had placed them. I would agree that it is way too high of a projection for them although if it happened the excitement would be huge heading into the big 2012-2013 season.

I'll go ahead and list the free throw numbers for playoff teams since Vogel took over (I'm not sure about the numbers either and while ESPN claims to have splits by month they're not working): Portland: Pacers 43, Portland 22 At Miami: Miami 28, Pacers 20 vs Miami: Pacers 29, Miami 26 at Oklahoma City: Pacers 39, OKC 34 At Dallas: Dallas 34, Pacers 28 Philadelphia: Pacers 31, 76rs 15 At Knicks: Knicks 34, Pacers 27 Vs Knicks: Pacers 30, Knicks 30 At Boston: Boston 33, Pacers 13 Vs Chicago: Bulls 42, Pacers 35 At Memphis: Pacers 26, Grizzlies 17 Vs Boston: Boston 36, Pacers 22 At New Orleans: NO 24, Pacers 19 Atlanta: Atlanta 36, Pacers 33 Knicks: Knicks 43, Pacers 33 Orlando game was meaningless Averages: Opponents 30.3, Pacers 28.5 Actual Game 1 totals: Bulls 32, Pacers 17 So nothing too far out of whack. The disparity is a little large but mostly because the Pacers didn't get to the line very much in game 1. Vogel definitely preaches toughness, an inside game, and not running as much as O'Brien did so that would lead to more foul calls on both sides.

There may have been 1-2 like that, but the vast majority of the time Rose drove the lane, the Pacers' bigs were fouling hard to make sure he didn't get the shot in. Rose is historically extremely good at avoiding contact when the opponent doesn't jump into him or hack at him. The one notable play I can remember is near the end when Rose got the and-1, when Hibbert initially was set for the charge, Rose jumped around him to the right, and Hibbert proceeded to slide into him with the body. Even though his hands were straight up, he still slid into him, and it was a pretty clear foul. Looking again, the diciest calls were the first one in the first quarter, the first in the 3rd quarter and the last in the 3rd quarter. Two of them, it looks like Rose did something similar to the one I mentioned at the end where he jumped to the right, and the defender slid over and hip-checked him (before falling backwards). The other play Hibbert jumped straight up, but he was well inside the charge circle, too. The charge circle wouldn't matter on this would it? The Pacers weren't saying that Rose was guilty of a charge (in fact they say it's impossible to draw a charge on him) but just that they shouldn't get blocking fouls. And the times you mentioned match up with the ones I caught as well. I would possibly add the second one in the second quarter.

I saw around 8 obvious ones and around 4 questionable ones (I'm not sure exactly how many there were). But on the 4 questionable ones there wasn't a replay and with a replay it might have been put into the obvious category. They were all just body fouls and it's hard to tell if a defender jumps sideways or forward or gets a lot of contact by sliding in when you're in real time.

Just FYI, the Pacers definitely implied that they were not too happy with how they were officiated regarding Rose. They felt that on some of the plays that they're jumping straight up and that as Rose is rising he's jumping into them which should get a no call.

He was also 3-9 from inside 15 feet. Inside 15 feet, the Bulls were contesting shots more closely, and Noah/Thomas/Gibson/Asik (for a minute) were getting involved. 15-23 feet shots were mostly on Boozer only. EDIT: 2-8 at the rim, so he only took one shot from 3-15 feet? That would seem right to me. He's only going to shoot from 3-15 feet on either a post up or a loose ball situation. He only posted up once or twice during the game (and only shot once) and didn't have any loose ball situations that weren't potential tip ins. If he drives he is going to either pass the ball or try to get all the way to the rim. He isn't the type who can stop and shoot a short jumper very often.

I don't know about that. He's hit a decent amount of hard line drives. It's just that they've all been singles and he isn't hitting for any power.

Russell is almost certainly going to get the start on Tuesday.