Trying something new!

Mavericks 110 - Bulls 102

So I have decided that I am going to try something new this year with my blog so I can actually have something to talk about. For every Bulls home game that I attend this year I will write a detailed blog about what I saw. And for the 2008-2009 season, I start out with the first preseason game against the high octane Dallas Mavericks. As you can imagine it wasn't a pretty sight!

Dallas pretty much owned the Bulls all night. From Jason Kidd initiating the new kid [Derrick Rose] to Brandon Bass dunking on the entire city of Chicago. The absence of both Ben Gordon and Joakim Noah due to injuries [sore ankle and poked eye respectively] was pretty noticeable in that the Bulls couldn't get a run going and lacked a sense of energy. Since it was their first preseason game, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt like I gave them last season and move on and find some high points in their game and some points to improve on.

High Points

1. Derrick Rose - It looked like Coach Vinny del Negro decided to give a proper homecoming starting him at point guard opposite Jason Kidd. Rose definitely has the quickness that was advertised and his crossover is deadly. He definitely is not afraid to take it to the hole as he was sometimes the only one cutting to the basket, even more so than some of the Bulls bigs
   
2. Drew Gooden - He is going to be the work horse for the Bulls. Gooden looked like he dropped some weight and would even bring up the ball on occasion when a guard wasn't open. He has that veteran big man 18-footer down, and has a couple of post moves that can be promising.
   
3. Tyrus Thomas - It appears has been working on his jump shot. He made a couple of jumpers around the 15 foot mark. Didn't look bad on them, but he still needs to get some alley oops to make the fans happy
4. Aaron Gray - Don't sleep on this guy! He has decent footwork but just needs to get a little tougher against the big men of the NBA. He can be a 15 and 10 guy if given the right team or system
   

Points to Improve

1. The rotation - Obviously it being the first NBA game together under the new coaching team, there is going to be some confusion on who plays well with who. Since the Bulls a packed with talent but with no "superstar", this rotation will take a while to figure out. And this was without Gordon and Noah to throw in the mixer
2. Free throws - Seriously, these should be cake to these guys. Seeing Nocioni and Deng clank one off the back iron doesn't give me any warm fuzzy feelings about the season. They should be able to make these with their eyes clothes. You get paid MILLIONS!
3. Offensive sets - Now this could be due to the whole preseason game thing, but it didn't look like there were barely any offensive sets. I would hope you could see one or two sets that looked like something, but not so much.
   

Thanks for reading! My next home game is against Dallas once again on November 13. Be sure to check back then for more!