April 10--The Bulls improved to 47-32 with their road victory over the Heat. Here are three observations:
The Bulls again lost the hustle point areas.
Though the Bulls did outrebound the smallish Heat team, Miami outscored the Bulls 42-32 in points in the paint and 18-12 in second-chance points. These are the areas in which the Bulls used to dominate.
"We get lackadaisical sometimes," Taj Gibson admitted.
That's a comment you don't typically hear from the Bulls. Coach Tom Thibodeau spent some of his postgame comments imploring his team to sprint back on defense. Again, that isn't stuff that in the past has needed to be said to the Bulls.
"The rebounding has to be strong," Thibodeau said. "That's putting your body on somebody. Sprinting back, that's just your will. Sprint back every time. Don't jog back. Don't look at the officials."
Derrick Rose looks strong physically.
As poorly as the Bulls played in Florida, the return of Rose is a bright spot. It's not so much how he played as that he played---and looked fine physically in doing so.
"I wouldn't say mentally. I would say that's more physically," Rose said of the hurdle overcome in playing a back-to-back. "I didn't know what to expect coming into (Thursday's) game. I know before the game I wasn't sore. I was feeling great. And I still feel the same way. So my preparation for the game I think is getting a lot better. And I just got to continue to do it."
Rose said he feels he can handle more than the 20 minutes that he's playing but will cede to the organizational plan.
Joakim Noah's impact continues to be minimal.
The emotional leader of the Bulls has just one double-digit rebounding game in his last seven and hasn't scored in double figures since March 15.
Beyond that, Noah isn't making the same impact defensively, is having trouble catching passes and is still adjusting to different responsibilities while playing limited minutes. Last Sunday in Cleveland, he admitted to blowing defensive assignments because he's playing a different defensive role down the stretch of games.
"I think that everybody is kind of into their situation a little bit sometimes, but like Coach says, we gotta put it all on the team, all our energy, all our focus on the team," Noah said. "I think we did that in the second half and I think it was big for us."
