Scouting the Bulls

One of the great things about NBA League Pass Broadband -- which is complementary with a League Pass subscription but can also be bought separately -- is that it archives games for two days. So, at 1:30 a.m. last night, with my reading done for the week, I fired up my computer and watched Chicago's opening-night 108-95 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.

Why? Because we play Chicago next (Friday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN), that's why. Yes, I'm scouting opponents for a team I follow.

New coach Vinnie Del Negro (!) ran out an unusual starting lineup. In the backcourt, top pick Derrick Rose played alongside Thabo Sefalosha, leaving Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon to come off the bench. Thabo played only twelve minutes overall -- Hinrich got him four minutes in to both halves -- and was pretty much a non-factor. The move doesn't make all that much sense to me, and it's insignificant enought that I'm not going to scour the Internet looking for reports on why Del Negro did it. Perhaps he wanted his star rookie to assert himself, rather than defer to Hinrich, the incumbent at point guard. Or perhaps he wanted the very long Sefalosha to start on Michael Redd. Either way, Rose and Hinrich were the effective starting guards.

Up front, Del Negro went small, with Luol Deng at the 3, Tyrus Thomas at the 4, and Drew Gooden at the 5. This despite the fact that the Bucks have seven-footer Andrew Bogut, and the Bulls have a couple young seven-foot bangers in Joakim Noah and Aaron Gray. We'll see who Del Negro trots out there tomorrow night.

The Bulls on Offense

Chicago is going to push the tempo this year. Make or miss, Del Negro wants the ball in the point guard's hands, moving up the court quickly. Rose seems to have bought into it more than Hinrich, darting upcourt with a purpose, probing the defense. Hinrich seemed to be doing it just to make his coach happy. It really looked that once he got across halfcourt, Kirk was thinking "Glad that's over with, time to run some offense."

That may be ultimately better for Chicago, at least in the early going as Rose becomes more comfortable with the pace of the NBA game. The Bulls were a little frenetic on offense, committing a bunch of silly turnovers just because they were moving too fast. You've got to shade Rose to one side of the court as he brings it up to keep him from going coast-to-coast, but if Chicago wants to play up and down, I say let them.

In the halfcourt, they ran a lot of ball screens with their fives, Gooden and Noah. Gooden will usually pop for the 17-footer after setting the screen; Noah, because he has one of the worst-jumpers of anyone in the Association, will roll to the bucket. Kendrick Perkins is pretty good at defending the screen and roll, and that's going to be a key to this game. One note of caution to Boston's help defenders: Rose sees the weak side of the floor extremely well. Anyone shading into the lane to help on these screen/rolls will need to be very aware of what their man is doing.

The one knock on Rose is his jumper, and he didn't seem at all interested in establishing it against the Bucks. Even so, if I was Rajon Rondo, I wouldn't sag on him too much. Rose is so quick, so elusive, and so strong that I wouldn't want him getting a running start at me.

They run more isos for Deng and Gordon. I think Pierce can handle Deng fine. Ray Allen might have some trouble with Gordon, but since Ben plays a lot with the second team, Tony Allen will probably log a lot of minutes against him. TA should be fine.

Kevin Garnett's going to have to pay attention to Thomas, who hit like three 15-foot jumpers against Milwaukee. He's not all that dangerous going one-on-one, but they found him a couple of times in the secondary break, and he's athletic enough to catch, take a dribble to change direction, and finish in the lane. KG will need to pick him up around the free throw line.

The Bulls on Defense

Chicago isn't very good on the other end of the floor. Their rotations were pretty bad against Milwaukee, so if we can knock down our open looks (I'm looking at you, Ray Allen and Eddie House) we should be fine. Thomas may just be long enough and athletic enough to bother KG's jumper, but Garnett has found a way to score against much tougher opponents throughout his career.

Two things I noticed in the Milwaukee game regarding help defense that the Celtics need to exploit. First, the Bulls didn't help well when the Bucks penetrated. That means that Rondo needs to drive to score, not to dish, something he seems to do more at home than on the road (this game is in Boston). How many times last year did we see Rondo go up for what appeared to be a wide-open layup, only to kick it out to somebody 20 feet from the bucket? If the Bulls aren't going to help, Rondo needs to finish those plays himself.

On the other hand, the Chicago's young bigs, Thomas and Noah, are more than happy to double team the post, recklessly looking for blocked shots. That's to our favor when the ball is in Garnett's hand, as there's no four in the game who passes finds the open man under the basket as well as he does. It will be up to Kendrick Perkins to make himself available (which he usually does), catch the pass (he's not so bad at this), and finish (this is where it gets dicey).

Remember, Friday night, ESPN, 8 p.m. Eastern. Should be a fun one to watch.