The reason behind why the Bulls won game 2 is two-fold; 1.) JoNoah and 2.) the Bulls owning the boards. Joakim was everywhere the Bulls needed him to be. He dominated the glass on both ends of the court and was able to come up with some huge put-backs on missed jumpers. His stat line of 19 points and 14 boards doesn't reflect his effect on the defensive end. The game plan to defend JJ and JCraw was to aggressively clog up the lane and show help when ever they ran an iso. Jo was a huge part in that as he was sagging off of Horford or Smith which led to one of them getting a pass and putting up a bad shot (mostly Smith, he was stinky). The Hawks as a team shot only 34% from the field (Bulls not much better at 39%) and JJ/JCraw were held to 27 points. Secondly, the Bulls were +19 in rebounds. Its good when the Bulls are getting many second shot opportunities and taking them away from the Hawks.
DRose had an okay game. He did score 25 points, but it was off of 27 shots. Furthermore he was 1-for-8 from behind the arc. Those need to start falling in order for the Teague to stop going under screens and sagging off him. Otherwise they'll just close the driving lanes that Derrick thrives off of so much. He did get to the rim more than game 1 and actually got to the charity stripe in game 2, so that is an improvement. He also had 10 dimes but with 8 turnovers, so those kind of nullify each other. He says that he is still confident in his shooting and those are shots he normally makes. Is his ankle bothering him? He for sure isn't letting anyone know if it is. Boozer had another similar performance with 8 points and 11 rebounds (one turnover, shocking). He is blaming it on his turf toe injury and I'm sure that it is indeed hampering his offensive ability and allowing Josh Smith some highlight-reel blocks (J-Smooth isn't getting much on the offensive end chucking up bricks). I guess we'll just have to live with it as long as he limits his turnovers and gets 10-and-10. The bench mob had a rough go at it. CJ was taking too long to get into sets and it led to a couple bad shots with the shot clock running out. Korver had a poor shooting night but was a +11 (compared to Bogans +1). Even if Korver is shooting poorly, he still spreads the floor and doesn't allow the defense to sag off Derrick so much. Might need to give more minutes to HotSauce. Taj had a decent game and was a +7, hes going to have to produce a little more and help pick up Boozer's slack. The Bulls certainly aren't winning pretty games. But they won and that is all that matters right now. Game 3 is Friday night in the ATL, hopefully the Bulls can keep owning the boards and keep JJ & JCraw to under 30 points collectively. Lord knows Josh Smith will still be there taking bad shots.
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