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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.

30 pitches to get through 4 batters there.

It is pretty crazy. Even with two of them being end of quarter threes. Thats still 0 for 7 on "normal threes" His 3 looked really bad though. It does not have nearly enough lift on it. He only took one other non 3PT jumpshot, which he made. Everything else was in the paint. And some people on the NBA forums are saying its some conspiracy he got to the line 21 times. Of course they are. I watched the game, and not one of his FTs came on a phantom foul. He maybe had one blocking call that should have been a no call (where the defender was set and Rose slid mostly out of the way). But they're pretty consistent about that call so that wasn't really even noteworthy. Rose earned his free throws. (even though it brought to mind the very similar game where Paul Pierce went 21 for 21 from the foul line against the Pacers in a opening round game 1 that was also at noon and he did not earn those free throws). I actually thought the officials did a good job today. Only a few plays for either squad that should have been called today and only possibly one in the last few minutes.

Gameday has him as a 1.134 currently. Their rounding must be slightly different as I have him at 1.133. The difference between yours is in slugging: I have him at .714 SLG for the season so far.

Cubs Castro Barney Byrd Ramirez Pena Soriano Fukudome Hill Coleman Rockies Fowler Herrera Giambi Tulowitski Smith Wigginton Stewart Iannetta Hammell

If left open, he hits a lot of them. And he did miss some bunnies to make up for his jumpers which is why he was still barely over 50 percent for the day. I didn't see anything particularly special out of the Pacers today. When they play well, this is how they play. Collison playing as well as he did is just about the only thing that surprised me as he doesn't do that very often. The Pacers will probably have 1 game out of the next 3 where they'll play well again and whether they can close out that game will determine if there's a game 5 or not.

Garza's FIP is still 1.21 and his xFIP is 1.95. Thanks to those numbers, Fangraphs already calculates his worth to the team at 1.0 WAR so far (which obviously isn't the case, but the system isn't really designed to look at extreme cases like Garza's numbers have been so far). His LD/GB/FB ratio is still all out of whack as well. 2009: 17.8 LD/39.7 GB/42.5 FB 2010: 19.5 LD/35.8 GB/44.7 FB 2011: 34.5 LD/43.6 GB/21.8 FB Already, I think I can say though that he will likely not outperform his FIP by a wide margin for the 5th straight year.

Casey Coleman and Coors field is not the greatest combination in the world. I think Coleman will be ok overall at starting in the major leagues but this is a really difficult test for him. A guy with a bad strikeout/walk ratio who likes to keep the ball in play and has an iffy defense behind him combined with all that space in Coors field for balls to land. Coleman better have his sinker working well tonight.

I don't understand how a pitcher can be striking out 14 guys per 9 innings and be giving up 40% LD's on balls in play. If he's throwing so many meatballs, how is he striking out lots of people? And if he's giving up this many meatballs, how has he not given up a HR yet this year? His numbers so far this year are utterly perplexing.

He was actually pitching very well for Daytona when he was traded. He was just one of a million relief pitchers so he wasn't missed much. He didn't have a great year in AA last year though. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=P&sid=t260&t=p_pbp&pid=456379

It's certainly not common, but that's how I would describe someone like Soto's game. He's a patient hitter, but really aggressive with anything in the zone. I would love Castro to force pitchers to stay in the zone more. He wouldn't need to hit a ton of homeruns to really rake if he could add a few more walks and make pitchers challenge him. Soto's not real aggressive even in the zone. Players like Ramirez, Byrd, Pena, Colvin all swing at a lot more pitches inside the strike zone. What is strange is that Castro is also below all those people at swinging at pitches in the strike zone. Castro has one of the highest percentages of any Cub at swinging pitches outside of the zone but watches more strikes than the average Cub.

Welcome back Jersey. That's very possible, although he's been pretty good in his last 700 of those 2000 PA. And he's showing signs of improvement in all the major categories. But it very well could be a mirage-there's no doubt about that. He needs to put up about 2 more seasons of good numbers to really be trusted. he also had a home run per fly ball rate that was up in ryan howard/mark reynolds territory, which can't be expected to last. True, which is why he needs to upgrade his K/BB ratio to be more than a .750 OPS 4th OF type. But the longer he is in the majors that number has continued to get slightly better. That's the number I'm focused on this year to see if Colvin can make improvements because he certainly has decent power in that bat. If that number was horrible so far this year during his slump I'd be a lot more concerned.

Welcome back Jersey. That's very possible, although he's been pretty good in his last 700 of those 2000 PA. And he's showing signs of improvement in all the major categories. But it very well could be a mirage-there's no doubt about that. He needs to put up about 2 more seasons of good numbers to really be trusted.

You don't enjoy watching Matt Garza give up 12 runs on the fuzzy channel? He can't watch them at all tonight as is the case for many on the board. It's especially annoying to have a WCIU game after an off day.