Almost time to blow up the Bulls

 

Rose, Thibodeau era over if they can’t beat injured Cavs

No Kevin Love. Kyrie Irving may as well have one foot. LeBron James apparently just woke up. JR Smith sat two games. And, Kendrick Perkins … never mind, it’s Kendrick Perkins,

All that and the Chicago Bulls are not going to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs.

This should have been a cake walk (I’m not sure exactly what that is) for the Bulls, and I put a lot of the blame on coach Tom Thibodeau. 

Irving is what my old coach called, “the walking wounded,” out there with his sprained ankle, and the Bulls do little to nothing to make him work. Irving guards Mike Dunleavy, who, after going off a screen, will stand in the corner. Must be tough to guard that.

A good coach would adjust. A good coach would make Irving do something. It wasn’t until late in the third quarter Tuesday when the Bulls finally figured out – after two games now – that they should just keep going to Dunleavy, because Irving can’t keep up. “Keep going to Dunleavy,” has that ever been said?

But it’s true. The 23-year-old max-contract player can’t keep up to the 34-year-old journeymen.

Late in the third, Dunleavy scored 11 of the Bulls’ 14 points to pull within 72-68 and was barely heard from again. He shots two more times the rest of the game.

So, for about 7 minutes, Thibodeau – or the players – figured out Irving can’t do a thing. Then they forgot, and Derrick Rose went back to doing what Rose does best, his “I got this” impersonation that’s worked oh so well since his 37 knee injuries.

Rose was 0-for-6 in the fourth quarter. He finished the game 7-for-24. He’s shooting 37.8 percent from the field and 34.8 from beyond the arc vs. the Cavs. You got this all right, Derrick.

You’d think it would be time for either Rose, his coach or the entire team to tell him to stop shooting.

The torch should have been passed to Jimmy Butler during the Bucks’ series – actually, it should have been passed during the regular season when Butler carried the Bulls without Rose. Obviously, it hasn’t happened. Rose has the torch firmly up his …

It seems the Bulls are on the verge of being blown up. Maybe all it will take is firing Thibodeau after the Cavs series. They’d be better off.

The coach has no regard for his players’ health. It’s no surprise that Pau Gasol has sat the last two games with an injured hamstring. Joakim Noah is clearly not healthy, but, like others, we may never know it, officially.

Thibodeau is about the only coach not to understand the meaning of rest during the 82-game marathon that the NBA calls a regular season. At one point, Butler was out for three weeks with an elbow injury, only to play 40 minutes in his first game back. He went 6-for-20.

Gasol played 78 games this season, averaging 34.4 minutes. And now he’s out. But good thing you had him for the regular season, Tibs. He’s only 34. Young and spry, that’s his nickname.

Butler is a free agent this off-season. It would be in Chicago’s best interest to do whatever it takes to re-sign him. Firing coach? Trading Rose? Whatever it takes.

Trading Rose will never happen, though, as he is a Chicago native making max money. Plan B would be to get it through his thick skull that it’s not his team anymore. Basketball isn’t like that anymore, anyway. 

Somehow, some way, Rose has to re-invent himself as a pass-first point guard that drives to the basket and creates for teammates. It doesn’t seem hard, but if Rose was going to do that, you’d think he’d be doing that now, when they’re so close to getting to the Finals.

The path had basically been paved for them. Cleveland is a shell of what it was. The other half of the East is, I was going to say cake walk, but what is that?

Instead, it’s all come crashing down on Chicago. I guess when the season depends on isolating Dunleavy on Irving, you’re not going to win. Wait, they haven’t even done that. 

If only Thibodeau made some adjustments, like Steve Kerr did with Golden State. Kerr had center Andrew Bogut guard defensive specialist Tony Allen, daring him to shoot last game. Allen went 2-for-9, 0-for-3 from beyond the arc in 16 minutes. They couldn’t keep him out there and let Bogut roam around the rim disrupting everything like Memphis was playing 4-on-5.

Why doesn’t Thibodeau do that? Not playing Bogut, but if he’s not going to have Dunleavy run around screen after screen, putting Irving to the chase, then change the lineup. Put Aaron Brooks on the floor. Make Irving have to guard someone quicker, who can get to the rim.

Instead, we get this, a Cavs team that’s winning behind the play of James and, of all players, the always dependable JR Smith. Unreal.