UMFan83

Not getting Korver enough minutes/giving Bogans too many. Kyle Korver got WORKED by Crawford and Johnson during his minutes. Crawford and Johnson hit a bunch of bs. Korver needs to play more in general and more with Rose in particular. Korver was a +17 in 16 minutes last night, and Crawford and Johnson hit jumpers over every defender going against them all night. I'll work on a longer response to your reply when I get a chance.

What is this 2005?

I dunno. The Hawks definitely have my attention. I have no doubt the Bulls have the ability to win even the next 4 games and win in 5, but I can't dismiss the fact that we gave an already confident team a lot more confidence. For whatever reason, what the Bulls are doing out there isn't working. Maybe it was a really great shooting game that can't be duplicated, but that's what we said about the Pacers in Game 1. Then they found another way to compete against us, and then a 3rd way. One thing that stood out to be is that the Hawks basically admitted that they took what the Pacers did in their series against us, and added some wrinkles to match their personnel. This makes me seem like teams are convinced there is a strategy to beat the Bulls, and to this point there doesn't seem to be a big enough adjustment to get teams to go back to the drawing board. Anyways, I still think the Bulls will win this series in 6, but I've gone from googling when ECF tickets go on sale, to thinking about how we can slow down this Hawks team. And I don't think I'm being overly pessimistic when I say the Hawks can definitely win this series if we don't A) make the right adjustments and B) play better overall. Thibs is a good coach, but he looks a little over his head in the playoffs as he can't seem to stay ahead of the game. He seems to be on the defensive with his players adjusting to what other teams are doing rather than the other way around. Part of it is because we are the favorites, and should let other teams prove they can beat our system that gave us so much success in the regular season. So who knows....this should be an interesting series to say the least. It's so crappy to see that 4th quarter collapse. The thing that irks me is that the Hawks run came immediately after the flagrant foul on the Hawks. The Bulls were up 3, had 2 shots coming up and the ball. I felt the Bulls were just about in control of the game despite the close score. Brewer made 1 out of 2 FTs, and the Bulls turned the ball over with their extra possession, so instead of a 5-7 point lead, the lead was only 4. A Hawks 2 then a 3 later, adn the Hawks were leading, never to completely relinquish the lead again a minute or two later.

Yeah just like Danny Granger and Tyler Hansbrough.

What in the hell? Yeah Russells 10.05 ERA as a starter is a sign of a really nice job.

You mean like 6IP 4 ERs? I would take that from Dempster right about now.

Whatever happened to David Patton, aka the guy who had never been higher than high A ball when the Cubs drafted him in the Rule 5 draft and were "forced" to use a 25 man spot on him for a majority of the year? He just disappeared.

All 3 series where there is a decided favorite is being led by the underdog. And in the other series, the defending Eastern Conference Champ is trailing.

A .500 team that is 4 games under .500 and has the 3rd worst run differential in baseball and the highest starting pitcher era in baseball sure.

Jay Jackson. Not on the 40 man but whatever, at this point find a way to put him on it.

SP in the minors who are on the 40 man roster: -Alberto Cabrera - AA 4.71 ERA -Robert Coello - AAA 9.00 ERA -Thomas Diamond - AAA 8.86 ERA -Rafael Dolis - AA 2.41 ERA Yes those are some bad ERAs, but so are Russell's. Is it that crazy to say "maybe Russell isn't the answer, lets see if someone else can do better"?

DAMMIT! I wanted to see Russell actually make it through 5 innings. That would have been fun. The Cubs are in really big trouble if they can't find any other person in their 40 man roster to give them at least 5 IP and give up less than 5 runs. Is Thomas Diamond that bad? Quade is such an idiot. I can't believe it only took a month for me to despise him. Edit: I partially take that back. I didn't realize Diamond is the AAA version of Russell right now.

It's not like losing the Rose from the postseason is going to hurt them any. So annoying. Go worry about your own playoff chokers.

lol...I'm not saying that you should only look at regular season records to determine how a series is going to go, but to make a statement like 'the Bulls aren't a very good offensive team" and "shut down Rose and they can't score" (which is basically what they are saying). You don't win 62 games with a "not very good" offensive team. And if it was as simple as "shutting down Rose" then someone would have done it already. The comments are based in reality (i.e. the Bulls offense isn't top notch and the defense is clearly the dominant unit, the Bulls could really benefit from a consistent scorer to go along side Rose) but those comments really stretch it out. To suggest that the Hawks will win this series going away is just completely homeristic.

Oh thank God its James Russell day. I thought this day would never come.

Yeah...the Bulls crowd will barely even look up from their cell phones during the anthem. Not that its the Bulls tradition to cheer the anthem. It would be nice if they picked up the tradition for one night though.

"They weren't even in gangs," Gibson said of childhood pals he called Cookiehead, Cakes and Johnny. Sad that pro athletes need to clarify. When you grow up in Brooklyn and 3 of your friends die, 2 of them from gunshots over a 3 month period, I think its reasonable to clarify that regardless of who you are.

FYI, Coleman has only had 1 start that was less than 5 innings long.

There was no way they were going to give Soto anything to hit in that situation. The bat was taken out of the hands of one of the team's best hitters because of his position in the lineup. That is the part where you are supposed to have someone who can hit righties on the bench and is good enough to cause the other team to respect his presence when facing Soto.

Ha the funny thing is, against righties this year (not including today) .267/.313/.333/.646

A .650 OPS player from one side of the plate should not be forced into an every situation kind of player.

Baker vs. a righty FTL

Also, I've determined that blue is one of the least intimidating colors to dress an audience in for a playoff game. It looks really tacky.

I don't have anything to dislike about either of these teams and I want them both to advance. And that's the problem. Because there is no team to dislike here, the series becomes somewhat boring to be. If that makes any sense at all.

This was a rotoworld blurb apparently posted a couple hours ago: